By Willie Williams

Our history sets us on a path for the rest of our lives. My mother ate dirt. It had nothing to do with being poor.

She also practiced herbal medicine.

Mother ate dirt to build up her immune system. When you were Black, and lived in Mississippi in the 1910s and 20s, you were not accepted at the doctor’s office. To my knowledge, her first doctor’s visit was in the 1960s.

At that time, you were fortunate to find a doctor who would accept people of color. You were the last patient of the day, you came in through the back and were seen in a dimly lit room. Sometimes, the doctor wouldn’t see you at all.

If you were born into segregation, lived in segregation and went to school in segregation, freedom meant everything to you.

The State of Mississippi didn’t want you. Instead, it gave scholarships to Black students to attend schools in other states, to prevent integrating its own colleges. When Blacks obtained those higher degrees, they didn’t return to Mississippi, thus depleting the state of one of its more valuable assets.

In Leland, Miss., a Freedom of Choice Academy was built. It was directly behind the football field, so they could thumb their noses at the Black students who attended Leland High. While Leland was integrated, Black students could not afford the tuition, thus keeping the school segregated. Racial fanaticism eradicated hundreds of lives.

The expectation was that Blacks would be subservient to whites. Laws were enacted, like the South Carolina Negro Act of 1740, which made it illegal to move about, assemble in groups, raise food, earn money, read or write. (Slave owners were allowed to kill those who rebelled.)

Some people don’t want to hear the truth. They say it’s embarrassing.

Think about the person that has to tell it because their history is in the process of being systematically erased.

Voter registration is made more challenging. Districts are re-aligned as boundaries are moved. You were a mere commodity, and your life didn’t matter.

Books are banned; you can’t teach Black history. This is a modern-day eradication of my story. Germany also banned books.

People say “I’m not a racist…” Probably not explicitly, but you are implicitly.

If you were born or live in this country, you have probably developed some racial bias. People of color are still at a loss, because of their minimal knowledge about where they came from.

I understand that my American experience is much different than white America. If you can’t teach history, how can you right a wrong from history?

Yes, Nikki Haley, America has always been a racist country. Read about the South Carolina Negro Act of 1740. That’s your home state.