"In Compton, California, where I grew up, the city built a recreation center on the east side
of town close to where I lived before I went in the Navy. I played pick-up basketball games
in it whenever I could. When I came home on leave after being gone almost 3 years, the
demographics of Compton had continued to change and it was now common to have whites
and blacks playing in the gym, but usually not together in the same game. Me, I didn’t
care who I played with. One night I went to the rec center and I played on the west end
with a bunch of black guys because they needed another guy and the white games had
people waiting. We played several games and during that time some more guys had come
so now there were players waiting to get in our game. The winning team always kept the
court and those waiting to play took turns making up a team to play the winners in the next
game.

The team I was on kept winning and we had kept the court for some time. Part way through
a game, one of the guys who had come later and was finally on the court playing, got upset
about something I apparently had done and the next thing I know he’s calling me out and
I’m looking at a 6 inch switch blade on a knife in his right hand. I’m backing off, but what
happened next really surprised me. The guys I was playing with all came up beside me
and starting talking to the guy with the knife and essentially shamed him into putting it
away and then he left. There were some who backed off and didn’t want any part of what
they anticipated was going to happen, but my new “brothers” had my back and diffused
the situation and even made sure I got to my car ok when we finished playing."