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Author to Reader
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
AUTHOR TO READER There are many books by experts on America's racial crisis; this is not one of them. This is simply the testimony of what happened to one WASP family-my family-inside us and around us. It is not offered as The Solution. Indeed, I wonder if anyone , expert or not, can prescribe one solution for something as complex as relationships between human beings, each of us as different from each other as are our fingerprints. Instead , I have tried to tell only what happened to us, what we learned, and how we learned it. From this, the reader may come to conclusions different from mine. An education should not have an end, but a book must. By the time this book reaches you, the reader, many unpredictable events may have occurred in our country. Perhaps these events will bring us closer together instead of increasing the distrust between black and white Americans. My most fervent hope is that this book will prove to be more a case history than an autopsy. All the events related here are true. In order to speak frankly I have changed the names, physical descriptions, and IX backgrounds of all the people involved with the exception of my family. Unfortunately, in order to maintain consistency, this meant disguising people whose acts of great kindness I would like to acknowledge publicly. For this reason, I list some of the patient and honest "teachers" to whom my husband , our children, and lowe a tremendous debt of gratitude : Samuel Barnett, Fred Bonaparte, Rev. and Mrs. Leonard L. Smalls, Dr. and Mrs. Claude Organ, Joan McGuinn Jenkins, Mr. and Mrs. John Martin, "Bud" Outlaw, Horace Williams, Winifred Peterson, Dr. Leo Freeman, Katherine Fletcher, Raymond Pace Alexander, Sadie T. M. Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Vallery, and Mrs. Randolph Brown. For the critical encouragement and honesty she handed over our back fence, lowe thanks also to Eleanor Olkes Lavin. Philadelphia January 3) 1970 x LOIS MARK STALVEY ...