Born with Brown v. Board of Education decision

On the day that I was born on May 18, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, the newspaper headlines around the country announced that the Supreme Court of the United States had outlawed public school segregation in the case entitled Brown versus Board of Education. Relatives used to tease me and say that when my mother, Quintella Dobbins Horne, a high school teacher, heard that the schools were going to be desegregated, she went into labor. However in 1963, nine years after that decision, after having skipped the second grade, I was in the fourth grade at all-Black Center Street Elementary School.

Until I was approximately eight years old, our family attended Westminster Presbyterian Church. It was pastored by Rev. John W. Rice who was the father of Condoleezza Rice. Condoleezza and I, only a few months apart in age, were in the same Sunday School class. Mrs. Rice was a music teacher and Condoleezza began playing the piano at a very early age. Soon the mothers of other young girls in the neighborhood decided that we should take piano lessons as well, whether we wanted to or not. My Mom also made sure that my younger sister Janet and I took ballet and tap dance lessons. (more…)

“In Ourselves Our Future Lies”

Just three and a half years after surviving my unhappiest year, 1963, the Birmingham News interviewed four young adults to speak about changes in the New South. In its May 21, 1967 edition, while a student at Miles College, I was recorded saying, “the South is improving, but you learn that you must struggle to achieve something. You learn that nothing really comes easy.”

Indeed, life during the fall of 1963 was far from easy in one old, hateful southern city: Birmingham, Alabama. I was a senior at Ullman High School eagerly awaiting graduation in its winter class. Cynthia Wesley was a fourteen-year-old student at Ullman; I was two years older. We first exchanged flirting glances. Then, through our friends, we passed little innocent notes to each other. After these notes, our friendship blossomed. She was so smart, happy, and full of hope. I still remember her smile that melted away all my shy defenses. (more…)

“Am I partly responsible for the death of those girls?”

Sunday, September 15, 1963…a time in history that is etched in my memory.

On Sunday, September 15, 1963, the beautiful fall morning began as any other Sunday morning in the Wesley household. Mama would get up early, fill the house with the aroma of bacon frying, biscuits baking and even dinner cooking.

It was not hard to get her brood of eight (plus three others) stirring when the house was filled with the smell of good food. The only one of the eight missing was my brother who had volunteered for the army. Two teenage girls who had experienced unfortunate family circumstances had joined our family and a five month old infant was also in the mix. (more…)

I had nightmares about the three coffins

In the fall of 1963, we were shocked by the vicious and cowardly bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, one of Birmingham’s most prominent African American churches. We soon learned that four innocent young African American girls had been killed; I was devastated to hear that one of them was a good friend and classmate, Cynthia. I’ll never forget that Sunday morning in church at Sixth Avenue Baptist, when our minister, Reverend Porter, announced that our sister church had been bombed. Congregation members immediately left their seats, in a state of shock, because our relatives and friends belonged to that church. (more…)

Waiting 50 years for “Prom we never had”

1963 was pure hell for me beginning in January.  We were human; however, we were not treated as such.  Things were totally different. There was a separation of Black people and White people at this time.  By this time things began to change in our city and it was really sad to know that you were thought of as nothing but an unacceptable person.  You could not sit beside a White person on the bus and you couldn’t sit and dine with them either.  We could not go to the better movie theaters nor could we try on clothing that we attempted to purchase.

By this time in my heart I knew it was time for a change. My only thought was, when, where, and how. (more…)