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Ending White Supremacy
Within Myself
Lauren Stuparitz
Social Activist
Pittsburgh, Pensilvania, EE.UU.

W

hy is working for racial justice important to you - as a
white person? Why do you
care to work for antiracism? These are
questions that get asked a lot. They are
asked because the answers might not be
obvious; the answers might be mysterious for some. It might seem that there is
not a personal significant motivation for
white people to organize themselves to
unlearn deep-rooted racism and try
learning, grasping, grappling with, the
real White Supremacist history and present reality of this country the United
States of America, that lots of white
people experience. I just learned something informally at an art sale last weekend. I learned from a Black man who
was selling old photographs. Most of the
pictures were from Pittsburgh and some
from the body of work of the AfricanAmerican accomplished photographer
Charles “Teenie” Harris. These images
were from the downtown theater called
Warner Theater - well, now it's called
Warner Center, and it's home to the central welfare and public assistance office.
Back then it was a segregated theater
where only whites were allowed to sit

and watch movies on the first/ground
floor; black customers needed to walk up
an outdoor staircase to the second floor,
where they were able to sit on the upper
level. He also mentioned to my friend
and I that Forest Hills, a small town adjacent to Pittsburgh, was a sundown
town. Although the question “what's a
"sundown town?" appeared in my mind,
I did not ask, because what flashed into
memory was was an image of a library
book I came across when working at the
community college. Aside from the random encounter of a book cover and having access to the internet to look into
what it meant further, I never could have
learned about this terrible historical concept and practice from traditional methods. “Sundown Towns” were places that
did not allow Black people after dark.
Black people could work in a certain
place, and shop or use services there
during the day, but it was considered
illegal for them if they were there at
night. They could not live there or even
be present after sunset. This was implemented by law enforcement and local
civilians who terrorized and punished
Black people for being present in their

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