First Lesson

I don't know exactly when it was that I got my first inkling that segregation was wrong. I could read, but was still interested in reading anything and everything in sight. We'll say I was 6, which would have made it 1953 though it might have been a little later. Not much.

Where it was, that I know exactly. Rock City. A strange place for clarity, but there you have it. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but what I remember is that at the entrance was a rock-faced ticket kiosk that provided the only shade in the whole hot, concrete-paved area.

There were three water fountains on the back of that brown and tan stone wall. One read "White"; another, "Colored"; and the third, a knee-high faucet with a bowl beneath it, "Dogs".
It didn't seem funny and it didn't seem right.