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Oklahoma City 1939 was as segregated as it could be
as this Russell Lee photograph clearly illustrates |
Sometimes racism is blatant, like the "separate but equal" facilities in the south that were carved out like a cancer in the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 60s. But it was a quiet separate-but-equal in Colorado, the kind you didn't see in signs, but it was there, nonetheless. I was just as shocked as anyone was when I found out that my own father was
not a part of perpetuating it, but
ending it.
The 1960s in Colorado was very different from how you and I now experience it. Leaded gas flowed through carburetors into low octane engines, filling the air with a fine brown exhaust that hung about a simple interstate system. This system, when it at last intersected northwest of the city, it was so convoluted and kinked with curves, one traffic reporter called it a mousetrap, probably because there was no way you were getting out of there with all your whiskers intact!
If you wanted to call someone, much like everywhere else in the country, you had to figure out if they'd be home. In the summer, this was a real bother because the only place that actually had air conditioning was a movie theater or maybe the stores on 16th Street downtown. Even brand new Westland Mall at Colfax and Pierce in Lakewood had open breezeways instead of an actual enclosed commons like Colorado Mills. So to cool off, you might have gone to a pool, or a movie, but staying cooped up in a house some warm summer evening wasn't much fun. But if you were lucky, and they were unlucky, you could call them.
But don't stay on too long. They might need to take another call for someone else living at the same address. What's worse, the other caller might get frustrated from re-dialing their rotary phone so many times and constantly getting what was called a "busy signal." Or worse, you could be interrupting their favorite TV show re-run which they'd missed the first time because they didn't have a DVR. They didn't have VCRs back in the 60's either. And most stations still broadcast in black and white anyway. And with 2 to 5 channels to pick from locally, you were pretty much stuck with whatever the local stations could arrange. There were no long-distance cable networks. Forget video games. Forget chat. If you wanted to communicate with your friends out-of-state, It was stamped and hand delivered mail, or you could call them. It would cost up to $3 a minute and if you called and got a busy signal, you had to wait for them to finish and then try again!
If you likewise wanted to get an appointment, you had to call the doctor or the dentist and if they were busy, well just too bad. You'd have to call back in a few minutes. No redial either. Some folks actually got jobs by how fast they could dial a phone using a rotary dial, or how fast they could write shorthand (an early, handwritten form of txtspk bt w/o teh phone or typos. And typos, oh, cardinal sins, those typos! Not everyone typed. In fact, they had what were called "typing pools" where your secretary's shorthand would get translated to actual e-n-g-l-i-s-h by mostly women who did nothing but type and file all day. And if they had over the number of allowable
misteaks mistakes, usually 2, they would
hve have to start over. Not 2 mistakes per word, not per line, but per page! White out was still a decade away, so it was essential to get a perfect typist or appear like you couldn't afford good employees.
Speaking of white out. That happened in the mornings. Oh, no one told you about that? Well, if you were white, you would go out in the morning to the store, the tailor or dry cleaners, or if you had a checkup at the dentist, you would go and see him in the morning. Then, after 1 or 2 p.m., that's when the other folks, the blacks or mexicans, would have their turn. It could be a real problem if your dentist had some garlic-loaded 3 cheese lasagna for lunch or worse, knocked back a few martinis with his sandwich at the men's club. He might not be as attentive as he would have been in the morning when he was sober.
If you did want a morning appointment for one reason or another and your race stood in the way, you had to find a dentist or doctor who didn't know you and you had to sound "white" over the phone when making your appointment. Otherwise, the receptionist might steer you to an afternoon slot. And then, if you showed up, they might make you wait outside the office or more likely, flatly refuse you your appointment and give you a nasty time for "wasting" theirs by trying to cheat the system.
It was like that in the 40s and 50s. It was like that in a lot of cities in the 60s, including Denver. But it wasn't like that at my father's new practice. Fresh out of dental school, my dad still remembered the kind and loving care he'd received from his grandparents' hired maid, an elderly black woman. She had taught him to feed himself as a child. His experiences reinforced the idea that racism, in any form, is not acceptable. He became one of the first dentists in Denver who had an integrated waiting room. If you needed an appointment, whatever time was convenient to you and the dentist or hygenist was when you were seen. Isn't that so much simpler? But if a person were a bigot, well, they probably didn't choose to hang out too long in the waiting room with someone who didn't have the same shade of melanin. That was too bad for them, because my dad, up to retirement, was the best dentist in all of Colorado. I might be a little biassed on that, but trust was absolute and his grandkids will all remember seeing their grandpa for dental work.
In every aspect, my dad is also someone whose compassion and love was very moving. As a medically-trained individual, he did not hesitate to jump into the action if someone was in distress. Whether that was on some roadside when he rolled up on an accident somewhere, or if it was someone needing help with a fractured tooth. This meant loss for him and his family when he would treat anyone regardless of their ability to pay. From someone who collapsed while swimming to crawling inside a car wreck to assist a mother who lay dying after fleeing with her children from her abusive husband, watching my father's heart leap in has led me more than once into my own harrowing experiences of love hurdling barriers to help a friend, a stranger, a lost soul, or a victim. I have carried this love onward as a living testament of a father whose impulse of love would propel him to action no matter the consequences to his heart. He is the bravest man I've ever known.
One of the best examples of this was a photograph that made the Denver papers in the same days of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., showing my dad, at work as a dentist, showing two young boys how to brush their teeth using an adult-sized pair of chompers. It was my dad, being the man I've grown up loving and proud to be his son.
