America was better during Segregation

In the 1950's and 60's when I was growing up in the still segregated South, the tragedy of segregation was still, largely in affect. The effect was that white neighborhoods were white and black neighborhoods were black. But we, my family, lived on the edge of the 'two sides of town' you know that in any town there is the good and bad side, often then termed, black and white, or rich and poor. And then in between 4th and 5th grade I became 10 years old.

Living in different towns around South Carolina and Georgia and always near the 'racial dividing area' which was always a railroad track or a major road, I met some AfrAmerican people and learned to love them and see them as simply easy to be with. That is always welcome. My Pals. It certainly convinced me that I wanted to be their friends, whom I never called 'them'.

The point to make here about Segregation is this. In general in the segregated 50's and 60's, the entire United States of America, in every city and town, used a policing system that today we might call 'community policing'. The way Police systems were set up then was for Police Officers to WALK the streets of their 'beat' on a regular schedule and most often the 'Beat Officers' were locals because they had to put a lot of time in to walking the streets. That is a VERY DIFFERENT policing system than cities have in the USA TODAY.

With our amazing technologies and expensively funded battalions of police cars we have unintendedly separated our Law Enforcement Officers from our society.
And too, Police Officers get paid less than Bartenders!

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