I remember how excited we all were about Rosa Parks and how we felt that change was going to happen very soon. The intolerance toward others was one of the reasons my parents left the South.

When I was 11, we moved from one of the cities surrounding Los Angeles to Ramona, a small mountain town outside of San Diego. In my freshman year in high school, I was excited to learn about the Sadie Hawkins Day Dance. It was the one time in the year that girls got to invite boys.

I was 14, and I knew I was going to ask Bill Bowers. He was nice, cute, and I liked him so much. Bill had been raised in our little town of Ramona all his life – everyone knew him. I remember photos of some of our classmates with him as infants in the playpen.

So I asked Bill to the dance! Bill said yes! I was excited. We were both happy and excited.

But a few days after inviting Bill, Mama came out to talk to me. I remember, I was sitting in my favorite tree in our front yard. She seemed very serious and anxious. Mama never had trouble talking to me. But she did this day. She tried to tell me that what she was about to say to me was not what she and Daddy felt.

They were scared that if I went with Bill to the dance, we would be victims of repercussions. Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized that I had done something unusual – inviting the only black boy in town to the dance.

It was an awful talk for so many reasons. I was being forced to break my date with Bill. But beyond that – how could my parents, who were champions of equality – possibly be saying this to me?

I was shocked, hurt, and disoriented. I couldn’t even grasp what Mama was trying to explain to me. I wasn’t raised with these ideas. I knew what they had seen growing up in the South. But this was California! Why would anyone be upset? Why weren’t my parents standing up for what was right? I just didn’t get it. Everything was wrong with this picture.

I felt crazed and emotional in the days before the dance, but I saw no choice. I was trapped and finally mustered my courage to break my date with Bill. I cried and cried. I basically told Bill a lie . . . that my parents wouldn’t let me go to the dance. But, by the look on Bill’s face, he knew.

I was traumatized. Bill was heartbroken and traumatized, too. He had never dated. And he never had a date throughout all of high school.

Even though Bill was well-liked by everyone in our class, he refused to graduate with us. As we were waiting to walk into the auditorium to the graduation march, we found a note Bill had written to all of us that said high school was “the loneliest years of my life.” And then he was gone. We were shocked. We were hit with a thud of understanding about the lonely experience of this boy most of us had known since he was born.

As the years have gone on, I have grappled with how our “tolerant” community could have so frightened my parents who, from everything I could see, were actively anti-racist, into committing such a racist act. I came to realize that they were lost, not knowing what to do and where to stand, not knowing how to be good parents, doubting themselves. I know that Mama and Daddy were deeply sorry for having hurt both me and Bill, but the Sadie Hawkins dance was never spoken of again. Mama and Daddy were ashamed. I still hurt for them. I still hurt for Bill.

Why am I telling this story? And why now? It would be so much more comfortable in this time of racial tension to be placing myself on the side of the good guys. To be telling you about how I got involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. But as we, as a culture, are putting a spotlight on the social structures that limit equal opportunity and promote white privilege, we can of course be angry at blatant acts of police violence or a thousand other injustices that make it onto the news. Looking inside is harder.

As I’ve been looking inside, I’ve seen opportunities I’ve enjoyed that I might not have had were I of a different skin color. But the Bill Bowers story is the most immediate and poignant for me.

As you go back into your past, particularly if you are endowed with privilege, what stands out? When did you stay silent when you might have spoken up? What other actions might you have taken?

This isn’t about showering yourself in guilt or shame. It is about scanning your personal experiences. It is about bringing your shadow side into the light of self-reflection. It is about discovering your direct knowledge of the often invisible ways the culture is structured. It is about seeing how it conveys advantage to some at the expense of others. From there, you can enter conversations about these issues with greater authenticity.

And isn’t that what is so needed now? Authenticity, conversation, and connection. Dr. Martin Luther King’s observation is as true today as it was 60 years ago when he said: “If you fail to act now, history will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”