Colored

The Beginning

I wake up in a cold sweat after a horrific dream. I am Adriana Hart, a sixteen year old Hispanic girl in the middle of a fight for desegregation. The dream is livid in my mind. I can see Bull Conner, the most racist man in America, with his nephew Alexander Talery. He was taunting me. "Little Hispanic girl, aren't ya? You ain't worth shit in this world." His words stings and I fight off tears. He was right, though. The only people who mattered in America were the whites. "You know that. I know that you love my nephew, Alex, here. Well he doesn't love you. You are nothing but dirt in his mind. Isn't she, my dear nephew?" Bull asks him. Alex nods with a cruel smile. Alex takes a swing at me and knocks me to the ground. I yelp as tears spill down my cheeks. He starts kicking, while Bull screams for him to continue. I shake the dream away. "He is not like his uncle." I whisper to myself. I get ready for school, the dream still in the back of my mind. I wear a nice black dress. I skip breakfast and walk out the door. He's not like his uncle. I think that over and over again. Suddenly a hand grabs my wrist. I look up, shocked and terrified. I immediately saw Alex and then I noticed it was just his friends. The boy who had grabbed my wrist smirks at me. "You know, if you take away all that color, you might be a pretty thang." I start shaking "Please let me go. Please don't hurt or rape me." I struggle to pull away my wrist, but the boy is too strong. Alex intervenes "Guys let's leave her alone. She's just a scared girl. Plus, she's colored and you all have girlfriends." The boy let's go of me and I stand there for a moment. I mumble a quick thank you and walk away. "She's too colored for any of us." I hear a boy say. Please don't be Alex saying that. After thirty minutes of walking, I finally arrive at school. At exactly eleven we would run away from school and go to sixteenth street Baptist church. We would march and try to end segregation in Birmingham. At exactly eleven I run out of my school and run to the church. Once I'm inside, I look at all the children. I could see someone as young as three! This is for Alex. We march out of the church and out into the city. I saw kids running towards the police, who showed up in no time, and getting arrested. I didn't have the courage to do that, so I just kept marching. After a few hours I went home. I crawled into bed, thinking of the around one thousand children arrested. Tomorrow I would make a difference, I had to.