The Lockets

The story of the Locket family is funny and inspiring. It seems to be saying something crucial about this time. I think of the popular Christian hymn that Civil Rights workers sang, "We shall overcome." The closing of the schools was not just about keeping white children isolated and "pure," it was about keeping black children ignorant and "in their place." I love the story of this man and woman w/ no h.s. diploma between them collaborating to create an elaborate fiction, the rental house, to send, not only their own children to school, but many of the community's. When I hear about stories like this, I wonder: What could they have done for society if that society hadn't kept them uneducated and in menial jobs? When I think about things like this, I can only conclude that some parts of the South helped to create the poverty they struggle from now by keeping an entire segment of their population ignorant and unable to contribute as anything much more than servants.