Friends of different races

The horrible shooting at the Charleston AME Church made me think back to the 1950s when I was working for the Frisco Railroad in Sikeston. I was the only one working in the office there on a Saturday, and my entrance into the station was through the "colored" waiting room.

Every other week an AMC minister was in our waiting room. He was a pastor of two churches, one west of there, where he lived, and the other a few miles south on the Frisco. He served each church every two weeks. For the Southern church, he caught a bus into Sikeston and then had to wait a couple hours to catch the train. I don't remember his name, but I will never forget him. He was a good man. I was not too busy, and, since he had nothing to do, we talked a lot and became friends. I looked forward to his time there. This was during the time the civil rights movement was starting. He told me that he had belonged to a very prominent civil rights organization but he quit. He said that he didn't think that they were trying to promote harmony between races, but that they were looking for offenses that they could bring to court and get laws passed. He said that he knew things were not as they should be, but that we should all be friends and try to work things out together.

Wouldn't it be great if we didn't need laws to tell us how to act but would all be friends and work things out together?

Forgiveness and love as expressed by the Charleston AME church is the only way.

Robert Modde, Perryville, Missouri