The one Jewish lady, Mrs. Rosebrough, on our block (and the only homeowner who had a swimming pool) had produced Tennessee Williams’s first play:   Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay in her backyard.

She became a target for the KKK, as did my parents, because they refused to participate in the Sunday marches against our new African-American neighbors, who had been moved in across the street by the NAACP. Not long afterward, a Molotov cocktail sailed through our window, and obscene and threatening phone calls were becoming a common occurrence at three in the morning.