Born in the American South in 1944, William Allen saw racism up close. He remembers what it was like when a black person could be "the object of contempt, derision or hatred, or even random verbal violence, which could easily happen as you walk through the streets.”
Racism was real and open in his youth. But old age invites comparison of the decades, and he has seen change. Good change came slowly after civil rights legislation, but he sees another change in today's black people that is not so good, a sort of despair.
His mother always told him, "Boy, hold your head up!" She gave him agency (definition 2), to see himself as able to act, to do something on his own behalf, to not be a helpless victim. "We knew who we were . . and we didn’t need to be rescued." Empowered by that view of reality, he was able to create a good life for himself as a college professor.
Today it's different. Certain black voices use their public platform to send a poisonous message of hopeless anger and violence.
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