THE LESSON

A little brown-skinned boy, wagon in one hand, mom's finger in the other, waits in line outside the building … Up ahead at the front of the line they're passing out flour and sugar, Roosevelt's rations in the war with the depression. As the little boy gets closer, he recognizes the people passing out the food from his church and his neighborhood. But his eye catches something disturbing … there's more food going out the back door to 'people of means' than there is going to those standing in line. Finally near the end of the day his mother's turn comes. 'No more left,' says the official; they’ll have to come back tomorrow and be humbled again by the heat and the line. The little boy pulls his wagon home and draws a great lesson from the experience. 'I saw people who had a little opportunity having no sensitivity for the need and the purpose for which they were placed there,' said Westley Wallace Law. 'From that moment on, I abhorred the mighty taking advantage of the weak.'

— Excerpt, Cornerstones of Black History 1993