lunes, 3 de septiembre de 2012

4 de septiembre de 1957: Dorothy Counts


Dorothy (15 años), en la mañana de ese día, entró en la Harry Harding High School, un colegio solamente para blancos en Charlotte, North Carolina, donde ella se había inscripto para estudiar.  Fue maltratada por sus compañeros y compañeras, que la insultaron y la escupieron. Cuatro días después debió abandonar ese colegio, porque los directivos les dijeron a sus padres que no podían garantizar su seguridad (Wikipedia)


On the morning of September 4, 1957, fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts set out on a harrowing path toward Harding High, where-as the first African American to attend the all-white school -she was greeted by a jeering swarm of boys who spat, threw trash, and yelled epithets at her as she entered the building.

Charlotte Observer photographer Don Sturkey captured the ugly incident on film, and in the days that followed, the searing image appeared not just in the local paper but in newspapers around the world.

People everywhere were transfixed by the girl in the photograph who stood tall, her five-foot-ten-inch frame towering nobly above the mob that trailed her. There, in black and white, was evidence of the brutality of racism, a sinister force that had led children to torment another child while adults stood by.

A week later, the girl in the photograph was gone. Her parents -having been told by the school administrators and police officials that they could not guarantee her safety -sent her to live with a relative in suburban Philadelphia, where she could peacefully attend an integrated school.

Charlotte Magazine

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