Ethnic Experience:Life on the Color Line

Sarah Gerdeman

Life on the Color Line Story of Gregory Howard

Williams Born in 1943 during

height of segregation Raised in Virginia until

10 years old Middle-class family Owned their own

business

Life on the Color Line

Father was an alcoholic and abused mother

Abuse forced mother to leave Greg and his brother Mike with their father

Family businesses suffered, forced to close

Greg and Mike went hungry as father’s drinking worsened, had few clothes

Life on the Color Line With nothing left, moved to Muncie, IN to

live with their father’s family Learned father was half-black, making

them negro according to one-drop rule “Life is going to be different from now on.

In Virginia, you were white boys. In Indiana, you’re going to be colored boys. I want you to remember that you’re the same today that you were yesterday. But people in Indiana will treat you differently.”

Life on the Color Line Life no better in Muncie Lived with grandmother

in 3-room shed Father without steady

job and frequently absent

Resorted to “hustling” and stealing to survive

Depended on handouts

Life on the Color Line Faced racial discrimination and

abandonment by mother’s family Shunned by whites and not accepted by

blacks who judged skin color Greg remained model student, however,

and dreamt of becoming a lawyer Passed-up for 6th grade Academic

Achievement Award as prize “did not go to negroes”

Life on the Color Line

Greg and Mike taken in by kind widow named Miss Dora

Provided shelter and decent meals

Taught boys how to deal with discrimination and tried to instill values and honesty

Life on the Color Line Greg remained determined to make

something of his life and found support from his father and those around him

Never wanted to try to “pass” as white “I hadn’t wanted to be colored, but too

much had happened to me in Muncie to be a part of the white world that had rejected me so completely...I also knew being black didn’t mean I couldn’t be successful...I knew who I was and what I wanted to be.”

Life on the Color Line

Went on to receive multiple graduate degrees and professional Law degree

Served as Dean of Ohio State University College of Law, and is current President of University of Cincinnati

Life on the Color Line

Continues to work to fight discrimination In 2003 article for Los Angeles Times:

“However much real progress has been made in the way race is lived in this nation, we have only to visit the projects and the barrios and the prisons to find men and women whose life possibilities were stunted before they even got started.”