63 years ago in 1952, our family had recently moved into a newly constructed parsonage. One evening about dusk there was a gentle knock at the door. Mother answered the door. I stood at her side, an eight-year-old child. Since we lived in a segregated community, I seldom saw African-Americans. Standing at the door was a young, gaunt black woman in a faded blue and yellow dress that revealed her legs had been scratched by briars. She was selling blackberries that she had picked. When mother went to get some money to purchase some berries, I stayed at the door looking openly (as children will do) at her scratched legs. What I saw that night was new to me – the sight of grinding poverty. It was a feeling later to be revisited upon seeing the poverty of migrant families working the fields.
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