BC Dancing
The year was 1972 , I was 17 and the season was spring, and it was already hot in central Florida. As Student Council President it was one of my responsibilities to organize the weekly dances for the high school(Hernando High School). It was less than stellar attendance at the high school dances. After football season and homecoming, the dances kind of fizzled out. Forced integration had occurred a few years earlier, but at our high school dances it was primarily attended by the white population. Though I organized the dances and attended, it wasn’t great dance music and the attendance continued to decline. Low budget garage bands did not draw huge crowds. A friend and I were slightly disillusioned with the white culture and increasingly hung out with the black culture. He was also a fabulous dancer and really enjoyed dancing to black culture music. (I was more on the clutzy side of dancing.) It also had a lot to do with my friends’ attraction to a particularly beautiful, athletic, intelligent, cultured black girl. I tagged along and hung out with another black girl. (I am not mentioning names). It was a stark contrast when we attended the black culture dances. They were held across town in Kennedy Park community center. I had the car, and driving in to the parking lot there was little room for any more parking. As we entered the center, it was always packed with well dressed, well mannered, young high school black students. It was alive with energy. To be the only white people show up to a widely popular dance among the black culture was an experience I will always treasure. The black guys were protective, but not antagonistic. Fast dancing was one thing, but to slow dance with a black girl as the only two white guys in the room was memorable. My relationship with my black friend was purely friendship and she steered me through the maze of potential problems and helped ensure we both were safe and stayed within boundaries. We attended quite a few, and even attended a graduation party where my friend stole a kiss from his girl. She had a huge afro, and the party was hosted by her parents and when she and my friend locked up in a kiss, I was looking for an exit strategy. My black friend and I looked nervously around and at each other and kept guard. I gave him grief afterwards and after graduation lost touch with everyone.
The black community in my town was led by some very fine parents of very fine young people, but by and large, very few in the white community acknowledged or even knew about the black culture. We were the only white people showing up at their dances. It coincided with my own disillusionment with the power people in my town, and when I woke up the morning after my high school graduation to an empty house, I left and never looked back. My mom had grown disillusioned also and had already packed up our house and moved to Gainesville and drove down to see me graduate.
My opinion is that the current protest movements over racial injustices could have been avoided if more effort had been expended by all who were in leadership in both the white and black communities. I knew I couldn’t change it and leaving it behind was not a hard thing. I returned to my home town occasionally, but never ventured back over and into the black culture dances. I lost touch with my black and white friends and often wonder what happened with the two young black girls who took a real chance by hanging out with the two white guys at the dances. I will always be thankful for the adventure to travel across town and join the dances within the black culture. Sometimes the greatest and riskiest adventures are nearby.
Parents have always been protective, and one down side of this is a lack of interactions with people who are different. I never asked permission to attend the black culture dances, I just went. I don’t know if the black girls asked their parents if they could hang out with us. Things are different, yet the same, in every era. The pandemic is a real hindrance to interactions especially interracial interactions. Let’s keep putting effort into as many interactions with others as is safe and possible. It will be risky and an adventure.