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By Root 411 0

black, while the school drew from a wider geographic area—including the predominantly white community of Dundalk—and was much more racially diverse. By now, in the early and mid-1970s, most of the previous decade’s racial unrest that had torn apart so many cities, including Baltimore, had quieted. Occasional rumblings still unsettled folks and tested nerves. At school, we had one incident where the police were called in that ultimately proved to be about drugs as well as race, but the media played up the racial angle and called a few kids squaring off in the cafeteria a riot.

Classes were canceled and school closed early. What I remember most about that incident is my drama teacher, Mr. Riggs, offering me a ride home so I wouldn’t have to wait around for the bus. Mr. Riggs is white, and I’m black, but our skin color was never an issue. His act of kindness never made the news. The countless gestures of solidarity and generosity that were made throughout our community were also overlooked.

My mother and father always made sure we knew more about our hometown than the Baltimore City riots of 1968 and their aftermath. Turner Station has a long and proud history. In the 1880s, when the shipyards and steel mills were booming, Russian, Hungarian, and African American workers flocked to a nearby area called Sparrows Point. A mill town sprang up: white workers living on the south side, closest to the mill, and black workers on the north side. When white workers saved enough money to move out of mill housing, they headed across a fairly narrow inlet to what is today Dundalk. African American workers did not have that option because back then Dundalk was strictly segregated, for whites only.

For that reason, Turner Station grew up as its own community. Until then, blacks lived just outside Dundalk’s city limits in a wooded area called The Meadows, while others gravitated to The Point. The Point, however, was actually located on property owned by the mill. No businesses were started there, in contrast to what eventually became Turner Station.

Turner’s Station, as the locals came to call it, had plenty of commerce, owned, operated, and patronized by a growing community of working- and middle-class African American families. There were numerous grocery and drug stores, gasoline stations, beauty and barber shops, a savings and loan, clothing stores, a movie theater, and the Edgewater Amusement Park.

My mother and father were proud of the town, and in particular of two former residents: Kweisi Mfume, longtime radio personality, congressman, and one-time president of the NAACP, and Yale-educated Calvin Hill, who played professional football for the Dallas Cowboys and whose son, NBA superstar Grant Hill, gained national acclaim at Duke University. Turner’s Station also produced more than its share of lawyers, doctors, and judges.

I’d like to think that, growing up in such a strong and proud community, I never experienced any overt racism, that it wouldn’t creep into our little corner of the world. But when I decided to go to that audition for the spring musical at Dundalk High, I was about to get a close-up look at small-mindedness.

A pretty good singer, I won the role as the romantic lead Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, and I was floating on air. This was a dream role—to have some great acting scenes and perform show-stopping songs like “Luck Be a Lady,” and “My Time of Day.” I was also especially pleased that Sky’s love interest, Sarah, was going to be played by a girl who was a friend of mine. She and I were in music and drama classes together, and she was bright and talented, with a remarkable voice. Getting a lead in a production was always a thrill, and I was riding high for days after the cast list was posted outside the music room.

A few days after we started rehearsals, I got a call from “Sarah.” She started off talking about a bunch of different things, rambling and stumbling over her words, which I thought was odd. I could tell she was nervous and I didn’t know what to make of it.

Eventually she got to the point. “You