I remember my parents, Italian immigrants, as loving and hardworking. The 10th of their 12th children, I was a sickly baby, a fragile child who was not considered to be very bright. My conditioning by family, teachers, religious leaders and peers placed racism in my life by implying that blacks were inferior, less then others. I attended segregated Catholic schools and lived in all-white neighborhoods, and the very idea of mixing or associating with blacks in school, neighborhood or social activities was unthinkable. The northern white segregationist beliefs ran parallel with the old south racist teachings. All of the myths and fear of Negroes were imbedded in my consciousness.
Loved at home but ridiculed at school, twice held back, I developed a tenacious spirit that challenged authority. In the fourth grade, I challenged the bishop visiting my class, causing him to inquire of the nun, “Who is this child who dared to question me?” A high school dropout, at eighteen I was hired by a grocery chain as a cashier and didn’t associate with any of the black employees; my Christian white world of racist beliefs remained intact.
One day, as I waited for a bus, my attention was drawn to a large picture of a serious, tight-lipped Uncle Sam pointing and saying, “I want you.” I walked inside and enlisted because my belief was that a better education would be possible for me in the Air Force, and was then stationed in the Deep South, far from the site of my childhood failures.
My tenacity reemerged when I was confronted with repeatedly explicit sexual advances from male superiors. Not one to be stopped, I drove directly to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and located and met with the WAF commander. The commander promised to look into my complaint when I said that I wanted the unwanted sexual advances against myself and the other WAF personnel to be stopped.
After serving my time in the Air Force, Charleston, SC became my home. It was be a monumental challenge trying to re-enter the job market without a college degree. I knew I had to find a way to circumvent the long-missing years without a good education and luckily a dean at a Catholic junior college was willing to allow me to enroll. I purchased used elementary books from the neighborhood elementary school, engaged two tutors, and studied backward in order to move forward.
At the end of the first year, I transferred to the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC and continued to be immersed in the “good ole” racist south. Graduating with a degree in psychology, I gladly accepted a position as a guidance counselor at a Youth Opportunity Center in Charleston, SC. After only a year, I was informed that it would be necessary to attain a master’s degree to remain credited in the counseling field – it was devastating news. I thought I had done enough to prove myself, attempting what I believed was the impossible – it felt overwhelming. Once again attempting to circumvent the impossible, I contacted the all-black Orangeburg, SC College. It was only 70 miles from Charleston and my racist mind was convinced it would be a piece of cake – easy in, easy out.
Being a white woman in a “Black World” had not fully registered until I entered the dorm and was faced with a black housemother and guided to my room by a black student.When I went to sign up for my classes, I was not wanted amongst the all-black students. They would not sit near me at a table in the dinning room; left empty chairs around me in the classrooms and walked three abreast toward me on the sidewalk, causing me to walk on the grass. I was successfully isolated/segregated and it was a shock to my system. Now, I was learning what segregation was really like. What racist teachings could do to your mind, heart, and soul. How it crept into every crevice of your being to attack your self-worth, your identity, and your humanity. It was not a very good feeling.
While at school I was confronted with a health scare, riots on the streets of the city, riots on campus that resulted in three young black male students killed and over twenty injured. In the Nation, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was a year full of sadness and life events that turned tragic. With the riots on the campus came the fear for my life; white was not a favorite color. However, the previous three semesters had given the students and myself the time and opportunity to become acquainted and accepted in their black world.
Those days and nights (most graduate classes were held at night) were life threatening. However, the light that burst forth was the light of love. The students became very protective of my safety, watching out for me, walking me to my car. My heart was awash in a love that was beyond the color of ones skin. I entered their world and it was life changing, life transforming. The exact moment that it happened, I cannot say, but my life as I had lived it was never the same.
I became an advocate for integration and as a counselor, I worked to improve minorities’ lives, including initiating and carrying through a lawsuit for the protection of minorities that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. That one-year in an all “Black World” expanded my heart to include all individuals regardless of their race, religion, or sexual orientation. I learned from my fellow students to love not judge.
In 1973, after having a mystical experience at a shrine in Lourdes, France, I began a spiritual quest that took my life in a different direction. Today, I write, teach, and lead retreats for those seeking an understanding of spiritual principles, spiritual activities, and rising emotions; carrying with me the lessons I learned in my youth.
Originally posted 9/2012
Carla R. Mancari – Bio
Carla R. Mancari is an author, life guide, teacher, speaker and a leader of retreats. For more then 30 years, she has guided individuals in understanding of spiritual principles, activities, and rising emotions in their private and daily lives. She is the founder of The Minute Method teaching and cofounder of the Contemplative Invitation teaching. Carla’s greatest joy is helping individuals realize their self-worth, special gifts/talents, and full potential.
Although labeled a retarded child, and a high school drop out, Carla attained two University degrees, B.A. from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, MEd from South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina, studied at Brigham Young University, and the School of the Americas in Switzerland, served as a certified psychologist, led a class action suit in the United States Supreme Court, for the protection of minorities rights, Morton vs. Mancari, 1973, and served in the United States Air Force.
Traveling worldwide for many years, Carla studied with Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist masters. She was a guest on the Larry King Show, guest lectured at colleges, professional groups, book clubs, books signings, and gained national recognition when featured in Good Housekeeping, “The Education of Carla Mancari, 1969” chronicling (1967-68), when she was the first white woman to receive a degree from the all black South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, South Carolina (published: Walking on the Grass: A White Woman in a Black World). She has also authored several other books.
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