A Date With Justice by Ashley Gooden

ashleygooden — 2014-08-28 14:59:25 UTC

-Michele Norris tells Lynward Shull's family about him blinding Isaac Woodard and they had no idea. Many of them didn't want to hear about it

-Decided she wanted to find out what it was like "on the other side of the color line"

-Spoke to one of the police involved in her father's shooting's sister-in-law Betty Koonce

-Spoke to Aubrey Justice, one of the policemen's partner in crime who still resided in Birmingham.

2014-08-28 15:00:20 UTC

"Justice is a guarded storyteller. He was careful not to reveal too much about his time in a police department that's been judged through the harsh lens of history. He was more willing to talk about the subjects he enountered during street patrols than the officers he worked with." (ch. 11, pg. 153)

ashleygooden — 2014-08-28 15:11:44 UTC

"My conversation with her and other relatives helped me to understand segregation from the other side of Birmingham's color line" (ch. 11, pg. 132).

Michele realized that there is always two sides of a story.

ashleygooden — 2014-08-28 15:15:22 UTC

"Segregation was informed by, and sought to keep alive, the illusion that white and black people are fundamentally different, one superior to the other. But the illusion could sometimes work both ways, for many blacks have refused to see anything of themselves in their oppressors, the race responsible for their denigration" (ch. 11, pg. 140)

Michele realizes that her dad and Aubrey Justice are a lot alike, but wants to refuse that that is true.

ashleygooden — 2014-08-28 15:18:16 UTC

"'But you know things changed, and some of the best friends I ever had were black. '" (ch. 11, pg 133).

"'It is still a shock for me to pick up a paper for the last year and see that a black man is a leader of this country. . . . I just can't get used to it'" (ch. 11, pg 133).

As much as she wants to, Betty can't accept a black man as President because that is the way she was taught as a child.

ashleygooden — 2014-08-28 17:14:24 UTC

ashleygooden — 2014-08-28 17:19:31 UTC

Outside Source

2014-08-29 15:18:29 UTC

2014-08-31 21:13:37 UTC

"After spending a few hours with Aubrey Justice, I was touched by something I didn't fully understand at the time. Only later, upon reflection on his life and our conversation, did it occur to me that I'd been sitting knee to knee with an older white man who was in odd ways a mirror image of the black man who raised me."

Later on, Michele realizes that she had been sitting with a white man. When she was younger, she probably would have never dreamed of doing that, and she notices how similar this man was to her father.

Take Away

2014-08-31 21:13:50 UTC

Throughout history, there has been many rivalries between black and white people. While sitting and having a conversation with Aubrey, she notices how much has changed from when she was younger, and that there really is no difference between the two races, because we are all alike.