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A Fair Chance by Shelton Wilkes It was Monday, August 29, 1965, when 1,731 students entered the halls of Shores High in Gulf Beach, Florida, for the first day of school. One thousand seven hundred thirty of those students were white. Bobby Williams raced from his homeroom to the hallway and shouted, "There's a nigger going to our school." A greeting like that was vile and mean-spirited, but from T.J.'s new classmates at Shores High, but it was something he'd anticipated. Bobby Williams was a popular Shores baseball player, and he was committed to doing everything within his power to see that T.J. returned to the colored high school where he belonged. Along the way, a wise old baseball coach, a tattered and torn library book, and a white sphere held together by one hundred and eight stitches would change Bobby Williams's life forever. |
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Williams would become best friends with T.J. Washington while losing every other friend in his school. The easiest choice for Williams to make was to return to his white friends and let T.J. go. That didn't happen. They were kicked out of a motel during the state baseball championships, beaten by grown men at a fast food restaurant, and mocked by their teammates.
Racism wasn't just limited to the adult protestors we all saw on television during the sixties. A FAIR CHANCE takes you on campus and into the lives of two boys who lived through this tragic time in our nation's history. T.J. Washington lived in a shotgun house with a loving mother who worked as a maid. Bobby Williams lived in an all-white middle-class neighborhood where he knew better than ever to mention that his new best friend was the colored boy on the team. T.J. Washington was a high school version of Jackie Robinson, and he and Bobby Williams fought daily battles to overcome the ignorance that fueled racism. Nothing could separate the two or dissipate their friendship--nothing except the Vietnam War. A FAIR CHANCE will immerse you into the struggles of racism during the sixties. It will break your heart, but it will leave you with hope. |
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