Louisville — The Busing Riots 1977

Of the many tragedies and farces that unfolded yesterday—September 23rd, 2020— the events in Louisville were especially hard to take.

I didn’t say anything all day. I guess it’s time to open up.

I lived in The Ville, in the late 1970s. My friends and lovers there, were the best. I had just turned eighteen — my friends took me to see Chaka Khan and Bobby Bland at the Memorial Auditorium, for my birthday. Those sweet memories linger.

I moved to Louisville as a political organizer, primarily in defense of the city’s West End, the black community which was *under siege,* during the so-called “busing riots” — riots engineered by the KKK when the public schools were ordered to integrate.

The Klan painted their swastikas on every school and playground. No one stopped them. They run the town. White parents made a big show of pulling their girls out of school, because girls don’t need an education, and you know… to “protect” them.

That kind of sick twisted preoccupation was the everyday conversation with Louisville’s white majority.

I couldn’t share a passing remark at a bus stop with another white person, who didn’t assume I shared their racist obsessions, and would make some OUTRAGEOUS comment.