Participants in the Getting Word project recalled varied
experiences with racial prejudice. For some, experiences with
discrimination only motivated them to work harder to achieve
their goals. For others, the Jim Crow system thwarted their
efforts to receive a quality education and pursue their chosen
career. Types of discrimination experienced ranged from
segregated movie theaters and hostility from whites to relatives
privileging lighter skinned children over those with dark
complexions. While growing up in Courtland, AL, Eliga Diggs was
close with the white children who lived near him—“we were just
like brothers”—but he recalls being segregated from them when
they went into town together. When going to a movie, “They went
downstairs. We went upstairs.” As a child, Diggs remembers not
dwelling on discrimination, but realizing the injustice of the
Jim Crow system as he got older. Once he began his own family,
he was relieved that segregation had abated: “I'm glad my
children did not have to grow up in that k