The first time I was ever called nigger I was seven years old. It was a little white girl with long black curls. I used to leave the front of my house and go wandering by myself through town. This little girl was playing ball alone and as I passed her the ball rolled out of her hands into the gutter. I threw it back to her. “Let’s play catch,” I said. But she held the ball and made a face at me. “My mother don’t let me play with niggers,” she told me.
