Originally broadcast on CHED radio - Date unknown

Perhaps you read about "the tap" in your local newspaper. It was a hot and humid day in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It was the day they cracked the color bar at the University of Alabama; the day two handsome young colored students, accompanied by federal marshals had their confrontation with Governor George Wallace. The lesser principles in this true life drama, newsmen, photographers, state troopers and observers stood about the buildings in the broiling heat. Someone noticed a water tap protruding from the side of the registration building. This tap, on this hot, humid day, became a facility of great importance. People doused their heads under it. They drank from it, they wet handkerchiefs under it to wrap around their heads. The tap became a social center; a point of contact between newsmen and the tough state troopers who were there to back up their determined boss while he made his stand at the front door to the university. The area around the tap was no man's land where the admission that one man can get as hot and thirsty as another allowed a little humility to seep into the relationship of each faction. Small talk was exchanged and around the tap the solemn mood was less acute. Into this scene walked two Negro photographers from the north, as hot and thirsty as the rest. They went to the tap and drank from it. A line of troopers standing nearby frowned upon them but did not molest them. A few moments later however the handle of the tap was removed and taken away and then no one, black or white, could get relief from thirst or the heat. For another 2 1/2 hours black and white suffered for the lack of water. Such is the logic of prejudice.