Standing up for What is Right

When I was about 13 years old, my family lived in a prominently white neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi. An African-American family moved onto our street and they lived two houses down from our house. The son of the family was between the ages of my younger brother and me, so we played baseball and kickball a lot together. The neighbors that lived between our houses were very rude, racial, and did not want the family on our street. It became so bad that when we were playing and one of our balls would accidentally get thrown or kicked into the other neighbors' yard, they would keep our balls and not give them back. Finally, one day, when Cory, my brother and I were walking back to our house from Cory's house, the racial family began to yell at him and call him names. I told the man he was rude and then ran to tell my father who then told the neighbor that if he yelled racial slurs at us or the African American family again, he was going to call the police. Because of our stand with that family, we were practically forced to move and so was Cory's family.