09-03-2017, 01:53 PM
Alan Page can’t recall if the sign read “White Drinking Fountain” or “Colored Drinking Fountain.” He just remembers he was stunned.
In the summer of 1965, Page was 20 years old and entering his junior year at Notre Dame. Page was working a construction job while staying with his sister Marvel in Washington, D.C.Page had grown up in Canton, Ohio, and had heard plenty about Jim Crow laws that were most prevalent in the South. But he hadn’t seen stark evidence until he and his sister stopped at a store outside Annapolis, Md., on their way to a beach.
“It was just a shock to the senses seeing my first ‘Colored Only’ or ‘Whites Only’ sign,’’ Page said. “I knew they existed, but to see that first one in person, it was definitely an eye-opener.”
Now 72, the legendary defensive tackle with the Vikings and former associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court says that experience played a role in his decision to attend law school and help fight for civil rights. In 1988, Alan and his wife, Diane, began putting together an extensive collection related to the African-American experience.
The collection on display throughout their home is a difficult but important reminder of what the United States has overcome and what it still faces.
“We tend to think that what’s happening is new, and I think what we see in this collection is that it isn’t new,” said Alan Page. “It has been going on since really the beginning of the nation.”
http://www.twincities.com/2017/09/03/ala...n-display/