DN12

Black Man & White Woman in the South 

December 24, 1944

Four or five days before Christmas the spirit of racial bitterness and intolerance came to Thin Walls -- just as the spirit of peace and goodwill had appeared on Thanksgiving Day four years before. Oddly enough the whole thing began when friendship had reached its highest point. Even more odd, it began with the Man trying to be kinder than ever, and the woman attempting to be more tolerant than before. 

The Man, thinking of it afterwards, concluded that both were to blame--that all of their past rose up within them and demanded out and before they knew what was happening, they had become just black man and white woman in the South with all that the words could connote. It would have been all right if the Man had accepted the role laid down for his kind, but naturally enough he did not. They both tried to rise above themselves, but the weight of tradition--racial tradition was too strong. It is poignantly Southern even to describe it. Both began trying only to be kind to each other. 

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