I grew up in Cambridge as a boomer child after WWII.
I walked to school starting with kindergarten as the Agassiz was only 3 blocks away. The very first classmate I ever invited to my home was black and my Mom made it clear that I had to ask her in advance if I could invite a classmate over and I was not allowed to invite him again as the upper crust in our apartment building were not pleased.
I grew up in an apartment building on Everett Street across from Harvard Law that was owned by a woman of means and back in the Great Depression she hired my Dad to be the custodian and was given the basement apartment as part of his salary. After the war ended she allowed my parents to move into the main part of the building and allowed my parents to lease out the basement apartment to students but there was still a class issue.
I grew up color blind but that is the way Cambridge was when I was young but my parents grew up in Newton-Silver Lake (Dad) and Brighton (Mom) and only wound up in Cambridge when the apartment building owner hired my Dad. My parents actually met at a Bruins game and my Mom dated Eddie Shore. My Mom was also born in Newfoundland and because of that, I have dual citizenship (US/Canada) because of provisions made when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1948.
In 1969 I went to Montreal for a Bruins playoff game with 3 others from Cambridge. On the trip was a very tall black kid from Jefferson Park named Zach. On the way to Montreal, we stopped for lunch in Barre, Vermont and as we walked down the street we became acutely aware that everyone was staring at us because of Zach and it dawned on us that many of those people had never seen a black person before - It was creepy.
My parents had no interactions with Negroes with one exception. Our newspaper was delivered by Eddie Gladden who I think lived on Walden Street and every month when it came time to settle he was invited in for coffee and he was always addressed as Mr. Gladden.
My parents were good people and I lost both of them by the time I was 21 ( and my only brother died when I was 25 ) but as much as I hate to admit this, my parents were Archie and Edith.
I still think I am colorblind
When I drove a cab there was a fear of going into Roxbury and one night I took Elma Lewis home from WGBH and when I got her home she told me to "Lock your doors and get outta here"
Elma Lewis - Wikipedia
I also remember there were 2 bars side by side in Central Sq in the early '70s - The Bradford was all white and Tom English was all black. One bar would only show Bruins games and the other only Celtics.
It was the black bar that watched hockey.
great post
