Crossing Racial Lines

For the first time ever, classmates from 1959 have reunited together in a reunion that combined three segregated schools.

In a story published by CNN News, the idea started about 4 years ago, when a son, Wyatt Johnson, told his father how he must have missed out on several friendships due to the segregation in the past.  The father, Tom Johnson, who is the former head of CNN, and was once the publisher for the LA Times, decided there was something he needed to do.  He needed to reach out to the African-Americans in Macon, Georgia who graduated in 1959.  He never got a chance to get to know them because of the segregation.  Mr. Johnson wrote to the graduates of the black school, Ballard-Hudson; the white girls' school, Miller; and the white boys' school, Lanier, and invited them to a combined high school reunion.  He wrote, "We all have deep personal memories of our high school experiences that will remain with us forever..."  "We had lived in a separate black and white world in Macon... It is a different world today.  We no longer are separated, except by personal choice."

The meeting did take place in early October.  More than 200 people gathered at a Goodwill banquet hall, and there were only tears, hugs, handshakes, and a few comments about the segregated past that prevented the closeness they could now share.  They also had someone from the group come up with a brilliant idea; they took out notepads and began making a to-do list of 59 things (representing the class of '59) that they could do as a united group.  They came up with several ideas from, building a home for Habitat for Humanity to writing letters to service men and women from the Macon area serving in the war.

They did have one person from the class who refused to be there, he returned a letter of hate mail.  The united class even decided to write him and persuade him to change his way of thinking.

I am so impressed by all the love and compassion that went into this reunion.  People can accomplish so much by just coming together, forgetting their differences, and realizing, at the core of everyone of us, we are all the same.  We all laugh and cry the same.  This group demonstrated what real love for humanity is.

There is also a video that accompanies this article, in which they interview students from those schools.  It's a very interesting video where they share thoughts on the segregation, most of whom did not even think about the whole realm of segregation at the time.  Most of the students from the black school did not realize until they were in high school that something was "wrong", that the reason for this was literally because of their skin color.  Everyone just accepted it the way it was.  However, they feel so blessed now that they have come to see change for the good, for the betterment of all of America.  There are all so thankful they "have come together at last," as one lady puts it, in the video.