This 1973 photo shows Rhonda Shelly, 3 (from left), Kathy Macool, 7, Lisa Shelly, 5, Chris Macool, 9, and Robert Shelly, 6.
Joe Crachiola/Courtesy of The Macomb Daily
This 40-year-old photo of kids playing in a Detroit suburb has gone viral, reports NPR. Joseph Crachiola, who took the feature photo in Mt. Clemens, Michigan for his newspaper, recently posted the photo on Facebook. In the wake of the Trayvon Martin case, the photographer hopes adults can learn from the innocence and acceptance of children.
“It was a very simple picture of innocent children being themselves,” he said. “But you have to remember the context it was taken in. This was five years after the Detroit riots and right in the middle of the busing controversy between Detroit and the suburbs.”
Robert Shelly, now 46, works for the Macomb County Road Commission as a mechanic. His sisters also stayed in the area. Kathy and Chris Macool live in Texas, where their family moved in 1975.
A reunion of the five is possible, reports AP.
“My mother raised us to be color blind,” Kathy Macool told AP. “You treat people the way you want to be treated. I was asked by someone if there was any racism when I was a child. I don’t know, I don’t remember, but I know there is now. I think racism is way worse today than it ever was.”
“It didn’t matter back then to us what your color was, we never thought about that,” said Shelly. “My mother taught us to love everybody.”
