Note: I've written a number of letters/emails over the years many of which have gone unanswered leaving me to wonder whether or not the intended recipients ever received them and, if so, what their responses were. To be honest, the vast majority of those are best forgotten, but a few are ones I sincerely hoped would succeed in being actual communications — the beginnings of conversations. The following is one of those.
Dorothy Counts' first day of high school, 1957.
Photo credits: Douglas Martin/A.P. Photos. [source]
October 29, 2008
Dear Ms. Counts-Scoggins,
I came across a photo of you this evening, one chosen by Vanity Fair for their list of the "25 Best News Photographs." I can't help but think that these days must, as we approach November 4th, be quite interesting to you. How much things have changed. How much things have still to change ...I was 3 years old the day your photograph was taken there at Harding High School -- a small, quite oblivious white boy living a middle-class life in a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles, California. It would be many years before I even heard about "your world" and many more before I could comprehend how sad and evil some people in it could be. Does it make any sense for this now 54 year old man to say to you how very sorry I am that you should have had to experience the things you did all those years ago? Does it help at all to know that when I look at that photo and see the hurt in your eyes that I want to be able to reach back in time and protect you, just as I would one of my two daughters, and to say how proud of you I am?Perhaps, but I think September of 1957 probably seems like many lifetimes ago for you -- that going back is not that productive a thing to do. Time does what it does, we become who we become and we live in the times we find ourselves in. I truly wish that for you the time we are living in is one of hopes fulfilled, at least to some degree. I want to believe, I guess, that some great imbalance is about to be righted somewhat and that you will find some peace in that. I would like to know that you know in your heart that you are part of what's unfolding -- that there is a connection to your courage way back then and what is happening in this election 51 years later.Kind Regards,
Paul Pomeroy