Oral History Interview with Don Offutt

This is an unrehearsed interview with Don Offutt.

Well again, while I was coming from the movie, the movies were a happy time, and so my mother and father were maybe about, uh, maybe about ten yards or so behind me and so as a kid I was playing on the side walk, and uh we had a good time and we been to the movie and I was pretty happy and we were going back home, and apparently the car had passed one other time and maybe made a (reconignance) kind of thing and the second time around they came back and hit me in the back, uh, with a brick and it was like uh, sharp crazy pain, then I remember my father and mother their expressions and my dad cursing and talking about white people and uh, uh, that was the first time I realized, the white people would hurt me for no reason and that was kind of a time when I guess my, my reality and happiness kind of crashed because before that had been no other time that I had ever thought about being afraid and so that’s a phenomenal memory and from there your going home, and the grandparents and all the surroundings and as a child your remember all the words that were being said and that’s the thing I think I remember most about the first time of knowing about racism.

INTERVIEWER A:Let’s go over this way now, you’re looking at a lens here, yeah anytime.

OFFUTT:I was only eight years old and the first time that I had and encounter with racism it was a painful one, when some folk came by with a car and hit me with a brick in the back and I think that was the first time that my reality and the fear came into existence with racism being the cause of it.

INTERVIEWER A:Yeah, good, lets go this way now. The same thing original, keep doing the same thing over again, but the first lines important were going to walk that way.

OFFUTT:Well I was only eight years old, when my reality of racism came into existence when I was hit in the back by a group of folk in a car, and that’s when my racism and reality kinda clashed and that’s when the fear came in as a child and to this day I think racism is something that stays with me all the time.

INTERVIEWER A:Uh, uh.

INTERVIEWER B:Can I jump in? How about this Don? I was eight years old, and I think its important that you were a child and your with your parents, so uh, I just kinda… I was eight years old, walking with my parents and um, and a group of white people threw a brick and hit me in the back and that was my first you know realization of racism.

OFFUTT:I was eight years old, coming from the movie walking down the street with my parents and we were going home, and a group of white people came by in a car and hit my in the back with a brick and that was my first encounter with racism and I guess the way I felt, felt was kind of fear at that time because here before I’d never known or even thought about racism.

INTERVIEWER A:If want to, hows that make you feel that day, I mean uh, you said that was your first experience with fear I guess, all kinds of pain, emotional pain.

OFFUTT:I think the fear came primarily from hearing my parents and my grandparents and the people around me, because they had been the people who had been my support and my security and then I hear them talking and as a child you see the faces you see the, the, the, eyes of your parents and your grandparents and you hear the words and all those words are hateful words there words that talk about how you can be hurt and how we gotta be careful and and, and, how these people hate us and we hate them for doing what they have done to this child, so those were the things that were primarily the, the that brought the fear, uh, I’ve been hurt as a kid before you fall, you fall off your bicycle but when you see your parents, that’s your barometer, that’s your that’s your point of trying to understand that something else has happened.

INTERVIEWER A: Good

OFFUTT:That’s the thing, its, its, it’s the fear come in, not so much with your pain, because you’ve had pain before, you know as a kid you fall off your bicycle you fall off the house, but when you hear your parents, your grandparents, the neighbors when you hear concern, when you hear anger when you hear cursing that’s where the fear comes in because a child hear before that’s, that’s how you measure how well you are, your well being, so that’s when the fear came in, when I heard my parents, when I heard my dad cursing, when I heard my mom crying as we were coming home because we still had about four blocks or so before we got home.

INTERVIEWER A:Tell me how old you were and tell me what happened again.

OFFUTT: I was eight years old and I was coming from the movie with my parents and we’d had a great time and some white people came by in a car and hit me in the back with a brick and that was my first encounter with racism and the fear that accompanied it. Because I heard the voice of my father I heard my mother crying and then when we got home I saw my grandparents and the neighbors and they were concerned about what had happened and that’s when I started to really become afraid because I started to realize that these people were concerned and, and, and, upset and so as a child I became upset too.

INTERVIEWER A:Very good. I’m liking what I’m hearing, I think I have plenty.