“I was born right here in Southern California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ’bout ten acres. The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice. My ol man didn’t like that. I never knew till long later why he didn’t like that. But I know now.” He hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. “There wasn’t another colored family for miles around. And now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch an’ there’s jus’ one family in Soledad.”
– John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men, Chapter 4. Crooks recalls how as a child his father didn’t like him playing with white kids. He didn’t know why then, but now he does. This speaks to the racial divide then in America.