Racial Harmony in View Park

When my wife and I purchased our home in View Park in 1959, the polite, urbane residents reacted differently.

Some of our immediate neighbors immediately put up “For Sale” signs. When I took the eldest of our three black children to Windsor Hills Elementary School kindergarten, the well-intentioned but condescending attitude of some parents led me to enroll him instead at 54th Street Elementary School.

But the genuinely welcoming and openly friendly responses of most neighbors and parents soon made us realize how wonderful this close-in community would be.

Eventually, we began to experience the joy and enrichment of living in what became a truly integrated environment. Our children knew that black was beautiful, but they also learned that yellow, brown and white are just as beautiful.

I hope that, by the time my grandson reaches kindergarten age in two years, View Park will again be an integrated community, in which children of all races, including black children from lower-income families from outside the Windsor Hills School attendance area, will have an opportunity to grow up together harmoniously. The true case study of Windsor Hills is yet to be written.

DAVID K. CARLISLE, Los Angeles