I am White and What does that Mean?
Growing up in West Lafayette, Indiana, I lived in a very white world. People of color were almost exclusively Purdue foreign graduate students and their families. I remember one black person who lived in West Lafayette, a professor, whose wife was white. During my freshman year in high school there was one black student, a sophomore, whose family had moved I think from Gary. I heard that they moved back to Gary, after one year in West Lafayette because she couldn't handle being the sole black student at our high school. One summer during high school, there was an Upward Bound Program for academically promising "inner city" kids at Purdue. I went to a meal there, hoping to meet and talk with Leroy Spikener: Leroy Spikener (Gary Froebel 1966-1968) who was known as ‘Cap Man’ because he wore a baseball cap and tossed it to the infield as he began his vicious kick down the backstretch. Leroy was shot to death in Gary on Au...