alt:
"I had lived all of my life in a small city where we had no black people.
I had hardly ever had any contact with them, or known one
to speak to. I no doubt had a feeling that blacks were
different.
When the nurse turned back the covers on the black
boy's bed I was watching. I saw the doctor and the nurse
start at the shoulder and slowly work their way down to
his ankle. Every couple of inches they were pulling
off a blood stained dressing that had dried and was sticking
to the wounds. At each pull, I could hear a slight groan
and I knew then that black people hurt and felt pain just
as whites do. I realized that the only difference between
he and I was the color of our skin.
After the doctor had checked my neck and back, I
asked the black boy why all the dressings? He told me he
had been caught in the cross fire of a machine gun and had
received 27 machine gun bullets from ankle to shoulder."
