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So as Pk comes home and brings her note from school about the 50th day of school, I take several deep breaths as any mom would preparing for a child’s first field trip without Mommy or Daddy. But this trip happened to be just a little different it’s a themed trip, with its settings in the 1950. My mind automatically thought about how life would have been if Pk had been born in the 1950’s she definitely wouldn’t be on that trip (giggles).
So I go home and Google specifically looking for pictures of black girls in the 1950’s in Mississippi, then the south period. My heart was broken. Do I allow my 5 year old wear what was actually worn by blacks in the south in 1950’s?
My mind goes back to the little girl that was on the steps of the court trying to gain her right to attend a white school. I think about the sweater she wore and the dress she had on…was she the exception? And then I think of my Dad born Mississippi in the 1950’s the 7th child of 8. I remember his stories of 1 pair of pants, 2 shirts, and no shoes to play ball in. I think about my mother who lived in a single home in Ohio , the 2nd child of 6 who waited until a week after school started to begin school only to enable my grandmother time to buy them shoes to walk to school. My version of 1950 is not your version.
I’ve gotta be honest I cringe on projects that deal w the past. Anything before the 1970’s I’m not interested . And let’s not forget those projects that ask you about a family tree, when you send home that note that say be more specific… I cannot I don’t have information before my great great grandfather and I don’t want my child writing… MINNIE ( NO LAST NAME) was a slave from S. Carolina . Yes and by the way that’s where we came from one of the coastal states we have no record past that. And what makes things so bad we have no pictures and if we do our family was more affluent than most.
So now that I got that off my chest… The bright side is that Pk will experience a portion of life that her great grandparents never got to experience.
My reality.
