Dark

 After Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, there were riots in the streets across our nation.  The city of Columbia was no exception.  Back then, segregation was still rampant in the South.  As I wrote about earlier, I was attacked by three boys in Five Points for being responsible for Dr. King's death.  They threw rocks at me, while I screamed that I had nothing to do with it.  I didn't get to tell them that one of my cousins was a Freedom Rider with Dr. King.  It probably wouldn't have mattered to them.  

 So, the Sunday night after the assassination, I was driving home from church.  I had just gotten my driver's license.  The city had turned off the electricity around Benedict College and Allen University, where there had been some unrest.  Both were historically black schools.  The police thought that if they cut off the electricity that the students would go back inside of the buildings around the schools.  By cutting off the electricity, the traffic lights and streetlamps were off, as well.  To say it was dark as night was an understatement.

 On the corner of Taylor Street and Two Notch Road, there was a policeman directing traffic.  He had a flashlight for drivers to see him.  He was standing on the line separating the lanes.  It was his fault for standing too close to my car, because I felt a bump under a tire and then another one.  I had run over his foot.  I saw him jumping up and down in my rear-view mirror, but I wasn't about to stop to see if he was okay.  I thought that I could lose my newly gotten license that I had worked so hard to get.  

 When I got home that night, my parents asked me if I had run into any trouble.  I told them no, other than it was really dark around Allen and Benedict.  I hope the officer recovered okay from probably a broken foot.  I hope the statute of limitations has run out after 57 years.  If not, it would be a strange conversation in jail, when they ask me what I am in for, and I tell them that I ran over a policeman's foot in 1968.