Growing up racist in King s shadow As a white Irish Catholic man, unlearning stereotypes came easier once I took a job where my peers were African American.
By David McGrath Text size Copy shortlink: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Racism was as integral a part of our lives in the 1960s as baseball, Mickey Mouse, TV westerns or vacations at the lake.
I grew up in a white suburban middle-class neighborhood, just like the town where Dick and Jane lived in our elementary school readers: No African Americans.
The only African Americans I knew about were major league baseball players whom my uncles mocked at family barbecues. So I grew up thinking that Larry Doby was a terrible player. When one of my brothers dropped a ball, we called him Larry Doby. The same Larry Doby who is in baseball s Hall of Fame.