Our family on a regular basis traveled to Port Authur Texas to visit my mother's family. My dad would leave Kansas City, around midnight and drive all night long.  My mother would pack fried chicken, potatoe salad, baked beans, hotdogs, and cake.  She had to pack enough food for our family of 6 to make it to Texas.  Because of the color of our skin, we were not allowed to eat in restaurants. One particular year, my mother was big pregnant with my soon to be baby sister.  This pregnancy was hard on my mother especially while we were on the road for hours.  My mother asked my dad to please stop and try to rent a hotel room.  They both knew that it was unlikely that any "white" hotel would allow us to spend the rest of the night because of her delicate condition.  I remember my dad pulling up to a Holiday Inn, and of course they would not allow us to spend the night in their facility.   However, they recommend a facility called the YMCA which was about a block down from the location of the Holiday Inn hotel.

 

We went into the YMCA, it was filthy.  The mattresses were folded up, and when we let them down, the dust/dirt was so thick, it made us cough. We noticed both rats and very large water bugs in this unkept facility.  However, for our mother's sake we pulled in the blankets and pillows we had in the car and laid on them.  Early in the morning we got out of there, again so discouraged by the in-humane treatment of the people we encountered across the country as we traveled. We made it safe to Texas, and my mother was able to rest better in my Aunt 's home.

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Several years later my mother passed away due to breast cancer.  My father remarried and the lady he married had 3 children.  We were now a family of 10.  My father had several businesses and began to have a much better handle on providing for his family financially.  

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We took a trip down south to Texas again, this time with our new stepsisters and brother and our stepmother.  My dad rented a beach home in Galveston, Texas.  He rented from a friend of my hunt. As we drove on the property, it was so beautiful, the sun glistened on the crystal blue beach waters and the cabin was wonderful.  We had a white bear-head rug in the middle of the living room section, and lovely kitchen and bedroom areas.  

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After we unpacked my sisters, and I got permission to go to the beach.  It was so beautiful and we loved every second of our dream vacation.  After a while we headed back to the cabin, and we noticed all of the white people standing on their decks looking at us.  No one said hi, no one waived at us.  No one said welcome.  They all looked so mean.  We hurried back to the cabin and prepared to eat dinner.  A few minutes later we got a knock on the door, it was the town Sheriff.  He said to my father, "you niggers got 15 minutes to get off this property".  My father immediately showed him the paperwork, that he had paid to rent the facility, however the sheriff, repeated, "you niggers got 15 minutes to get off this property".  Again, we were discriminated against, again, our rights were taken away, again, we did not do anything wrong, however it did not matter we had brown skin, so we were denied the right to have a vacation in a nice area. 

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