Back then, yes it did matter, it was reality, why hide or embellish it, it was reality smak dab in your face after the Eisenhower yrs.
Well forty plus yrs ago 1968 approx maybe 69, I obviously got off on the wrong foot by trying to hustle pool in E. St. Louis room in the late sixties as a young man. Since ange was 'from' the s. side of chicago, he had a good understanding of street life. I grew up in the middle class western suburbs of Chicago, and we had only two colored families in our whole town of 15,000 and they were great. In the trenches of society back then during Martin Luther King days there were NO gang bangers or drivebys or nighly drug turf battles like Now. I don't think we would of been shot, but def robbed in E. St. L.
Times were waaaaaaaaaay different back then during the Vietnam yrs and Kent State shootings. My next venture like I said was in Los Angeles when I moved there 76-81. By 79 I was running out of ''player'' action and heard about this kinda 'safe' room in the La area but I would Not go there at night. I'm sure Jay H. would remember the room name. Back then, blacks and whites didn't mix allot because of the prejudices many parents passed on to their children.
In La, this period was around the Watts riots time frame. My future wife had finally gotten her OT degree and was working at the Marting Luther King hospital ''in the watts district.'' This was the time period when if you were at a traffic light stopped, someone would pop out of no where, walk up to your window and rob ya at gun point in the middle of the day because you were unable to move your car. Those times were different, very real.
No this post has NOTHING to do about the race card, or if I like or don't like black people, or ya de ya dee. It was the way it was. I would of felt safer walking in e. st louis back then at night than I do now in SE Colorado Springs. Hows that for a change. When I moved to the springs in 71 there was NO such animal as a gang.
