My Mom's recollection of racial issues in the 1960s

I asked my mother about what she recalled about racial issues in the 1950s and integration in Louisiana in the 1960s and if there were White's courageous to support Civil Rights. Mom was born on the last day of 1935. She grew up on Prairie of Monroe. She was a child during WWII and a teenager in the 1950s. She had children born in the mid 50s to early 60s.

These were her thoughts:

There were many courageous people in north La..  Many were just much quieter than in "Remember the Titans".  My mother(Mema) had  many black friends and so did your dad's family.  I don't remember what whole story but somehow I seem to remember these black friends in Morehouse parish may have even kept their family from going hungry. Your  dads family, that is....

My mother's friends helped take care of me and the house when I was a baby and small child, even spending the night with us at times.   

My sister  had a wonderful maid, named Minerva Roundtree and, believe you me,  she used the family bathroom if she needed to.  She would have told you very quickly that if she cleaned it she sure could use it. 

My dear friend was Gertrude Berry.  She took care of me when I was a baby and Mike when he was a baby.  We lived too far out of town for her to help with you and Leisa.

Though we never made bigoted or racial remarks, we just wanted to be better than that.  My mother would never have called anyone a "n******" and would have scolded me if I had done so.  I don't know why that is so other than those good friends who did so much for us and we for them.

I never thought too much about segregated school as that was simply the norm.  When in 1954 the Brown v whatever  mandated that separate but equal was not acceptable, I assumed that we would immediately have black students at Ouachita High, but of course it was years before that happened here. 

It took place in Ouachita Parish very quietly due tothe courage of blacks and whites working together.