Clarissa Sligh

Testimonies

"This is a pre Civil Rights memory. It was 1942. I was seventeen, white, middle-class, and I lived in Birmingteim, Alabama. I never guestived pre privileges any witness brought me. One evening a young man told me a story about a gang of white boys who beat with baseball bats a young black boy because he had accidentally bumped into one of them. The black boy was crippled for liofe. This story would have horrified any half-way decent person, and it had the person who told it to me. What it did for me was to shock my imagination into action. For the first time in my life, I imagined what it was like to be a black, from the moment before bumping. Through the knowledge of permanent injury. Once I was inside some one else's skin, the world never looked the same again." — Warry Pader

"My knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement comes from books, films and discussions. My knowledge of racism comes from experience. Of all the ugly moments I have witnessed with friends, family and strangers, are particular incidnets still horrifies and enrages me. While in a deli in my Carroll Gardens neighborhood, on line at the counter, the man in frount of me, who we had discovered was a teacher, said with a laugh when a rap song come on the radio. "Hey wouldn't it be great to bring back slavery." As everybody laughed, my soul froze."

Witness Testimonies at Washington Projects for the Arts

"I am Jewish. I have also felt the pain of hatred - not for who I am - but for what I am believed to represent."

"I remember in 1953 when the Rosenbergs were killed. We were living at my grand mothers. I was six years old listening to the radio. This announcer cause on and started giving a blow by blow description of what would happen in the execution tomorrow. First they would electrocute Mr. Rosenberg. Someone would check and say "This man is dead." (I rememver those words. Then it would be the women's turn to die. I remember being so scared I think I felt that if peoploe could be killed so cold - bloodedly. It could happend to me someday."

"Let's hope that it does not take us thrity years to talk about the events of today."

"I have reason to believe that I am a fifth generation black/white man. I believe my great great grandfather was black, but am unable to get any questions answered by my mother who looks very white. It's a family secret. It's a shame, because it's not something I need to hide. I would be proud if this really is true. I'm sorry they had to be ashamed."

Witness Testimonies at Arts in General

"There alot of racial tension in New York. A old me I see it alot. I live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I see the Jewish and the Blacks bight last summer over a car Hitting little boy. By accident that little boy gaving cato guesold can't rip cause people keep bitching. Yours Truely"

"I'm Dominica, and until I came to the USA I had never experienced discrimination. My first and worst experienced was when I was walking in an Italian neighborhood and as fations often do, I made a friendly comment to a girl sitting on her front porch. She was very upset and called me "fatious Trash" I was angry and felt helpless about what this girl thought about my race. There was no way I could convince that girl that I was just a human being like any others. I wanted very much to feel at ease about this, but I was completely helpless in this situation. Discrimination for not have a simple care."

"I wish I could say that I have no prejudices, but I would be a liar if I did. There is such a thing as "tabuca rasa", but it never lasts. We learn from those we love, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse." — E

"And...So what do we do?"

"I come from a family of many backgrounds and mixtures. I look more white then black or any other race. I am mixed with. I am often teased because of my skin. I am not excepted by whites by whites, nore blacks. All I can say is Tod created one woman and on man, and from them we all became. I don't think the world will even except everyone for what they are vecause of ignorance. Racism = Ignorance !!!"

"I went to Belfast, in the North of Ireland, in 1990. While walking down the Falls Road I witnessed a British soldier target a small boy - a toddler - with his loaded rifle. I was shocked an angered. Then I thought, "But Why?" I've seen soldiers point guns at children before. That's when it hit me. In my life, (I'm 36) He never seen a white soldier aim a gun at a white child. Only of Blacks, in Alabama, Asians in Viet Nam at Hispanics, Native Americans, only at epople of color - until that day - Race matters: "REMEMVRANCE AND STRUGGLE" Keep On!" — Mary Ann Wadden

"White Black Green Yellow Blue Brown Pink Orange Purple Red
Please tell me which color do you prefer
(No matter what color you learn to take as is)"

"As a teacher in N.Y. City. I have experienced segregation as it exists now. The first school I taught in was in the South Bronx. The paint was peeling off the walls and ceilingsand fell onto students' heads. The school burned coal for heat in three large burners in the cellar. The equipment was old. The desks were carved up and nailed to the floor the way they had been the first day the school was built. The neighborhood around the school looked like downtown Beirut. Many buildings were abandoned and there were empty lots everywhere becayuse they had burned down in the seventies. Needless to say these were no white students at that school. The students were under seige by violence, frugs and poverty. Yet the school provided only broken down facilities and boring, traditional lecture teaching. One guidence conselor for 300 students and so on and so on..."

"I think that white people and black people should not be seperated. They should be together. W are all brothers and sisters no matter what color we are. One day we which means the whole world, sould get together and help each other. If we don't, it is going to cause more problems. HAving wars and fighting is not going to help or solve any problems. It doesn't matter what color we are. We could be blue, white, black, green. We are still a family. This is what we should do!"

Testimony Artists

Catherine Allport, Jerri Allyn, Emma Amos, Tomie Arai, Marilyn Banner, Rudolf Baranik, Dorothea Blue, Annalisa Bookstrum, Elena Borstein, Delores Bowens, Phillip Brookman, Marie A. Camp, Nancy Chalker-Tennant, Jueith Ortiz Cofer, Susan Crowe, Linda Cunningham, Betsy Damon, Penelope Dannenberg, Robyn Daughtry, Eleanor Dickinson, Jim Dozier, Kinda Earle, Carolina Escobar, Leslie Fedorchuck, Helen Frederick, Roy Gillus, Janet Goldner, Ted Griggs, Jarvis Grant, Carolyn Goodmand, Dorothy Hamm, Edgar Heap of Birds, Miriam Hernandez, Betti-Sue Hertz, Hettie Jones, Kellie Jones, Tamarra Kaida, Betty Hano, Jerry Kearns, Bea Kreloff, Avis Lang, Cassandra Langer, John Lewis, Lucy Lippard, Joan Lyons, Virginia Maksymowicz, Leonore Malen, Valerie Maynard, Dr. Loretta Mears, Ella McCall-Haygan, M. Salynn McCollum, Colleen McElroy, Carissa McKenzie, Yong Soon Min, Robin Moore, Sabra Moore, Marilyn Nance, Eileen Norton, Esther Parada, Pau W. Pearce, Sam Pickering, Howardena Pindell, Alan Prokoff, Margaret Randall, Faith Ringgold, Miriam Schapiro, Joyce Scott, Caroline Sharfman, Joan Shapiro, Annie Shaver-Crandell, Maggie Sherman, Thomasina Sligh, Alta Sligh-Ayers, Elaine Soto, May Stevens, James Stockard, Barbara Takenaga, Ethel Thompson, Gloria Thompson, Lilian Thompson, Stephen Thompson, Gail Tremgley Bisa Wathington, Deborah Willis, Judith Wilson, and others