Sherman Conley

Last week I went to my 40th high school class reunion. I guess it was a pretty typical class reunion for 40 years--fewer people came than last time, one classmate is very ill right now and hospitalized, gray hair is increasing, and there is more talk of grandchildren than children. Since selective memory allows me to completely bypass the aging process, all my classmates looked exactly like they did 40 years ago in 1968. 1968 was an absolutely explosive time in American culture and history. I graduated right smack in the middle of two of the most important events of that year, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April and Bobby Kennedy in June. The Tet offensive in Vietnam happened while I was wondering if anyone would ask me to the Valentine's Dance. I was lifeguarding and getting a good tan during the Democratic National Convention. I was listening to some of the best music ever made, like "Hey Jude" by the Beatles when I was going off to college. Social activism and protest were the norm, not the unusual. So, as a classmate who could not come to the reunion wrote in her can't come letter, "Why did we not insist that Sherman Conley receive his diploma on the stage with the rest of us?"



Sherman Conley was an adult, married, with 2 young children, who began our freshman year with us. He had never received his high school diploma and he was determined to earn it. Every year, for 4 years, he attended classes with us in the morning and went to work 2nd shift in the afternoon. I know this was a huge hardship for him and he must have been exhausted all the time. I'm sure he wanted to quit many times, but he stuck it out. Graduation time came. School board policy at that time said that a married person could not participate in the graduation ceremony. So our class had Sherman sit in the front row of the auditorium and our class speaker recognized him in his speech and we all stood up and applauded for him. But why didn't we INSIST that he sit on stage with us? Did we protest? Did we approach the school board? Did we send a petition around? I don't remember. I remember walking out of a psychology class because I felt a classmate made a prejudiced remark, but why wasn't I protesting Sherman's ban from graduation? This is a selective memory that I wish I didn't have, because I don't remember doing anything. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I did something, but I don't think I did.