Je viens de trouver cette vidéo de Ronald McNair. Il était le 2e African American à devenir astronaute et à voyager dans l'espace. Son frère Carl vous y raconte une anecdote de son enfance.
En Caroline du Sud, lors de l'été 1959, Ronald refusa de quitter la bibliothèque publique et ségrégée de Lake City avant d'être autorisé à emprunter ses livres..le reste de son histoire dans la vidéo...Vous avez ici un aperçu réel de la vie des noirs à l'époque de la ségrégation aux Etats-Unis..
Here is the transcript to help you:
Carl: When
he was nine years old, Ron, without my parents or myself knowing his
whereabouts, decided to take a mile walk from our home down to the
library, which was, of course, public library, but not so public for
black folks...
Interviewer: Okay.
Carl: when you're talking about 1959. So as he was walking in
there all these folks were staring at him because they were white folk
only and they were looking at him and saying, you know, who was this
negro? So, he politely positioned himself in line to check out his
books.
Well this old librarian, she said, "this library's not for coloreds."
He said, "Well, I'd like to check out these books." She said, "Young
man, if you don't leave this library right now, I'm going to call the
police." So he just propped himself up on the counter and sat there and
said, "I'll wait."
So she called the police and subsequently called my mother. The
police came down, two burly guys come in and said well, "Where's the
disturbance?" And she pointed to the little nine year old boy sitting up
on the counter and he says, "Ma'am, what's the problem?
So my mother, in the meanwhile she was called, she comes down there,
praying the whole way there "Lordy Jesus, please don't let them put my
child in jail." And my mother asked the librarian, "What's the problem?"
"Well, he wanted to check out the books and you know your son shouldn't
be down here. And the police officer said, "You know, why don't you
just give the kid the books?" And my mother said, "he'll take good care
of them." And reluctantly the librarian gave Ron the books and my mother
said, "What do you say?" He said, "Thank you ma'am."
Later on, as youngsters, a show came on T.V. called "Star Trek".
"Star Trek" showed the future where there were black folk and white folk
working together and I used to look at it as science fiction, 'cause
that wasn't going to happen, really, but Ronald saw it as science
possibility. You know, he came up to in a time when there was Neil
Armstrong and all of those guys.
So how was a colored boy from South Carolina, wearing glasses, never
flew a plane, how was he going to become an astronaut? But Ron was the
one who didn't accept societal norms as being his norms. I mean that was
for other people and he got to be aboard his own Starship Enterprise.
