She agreed to let me share her email address with Mazzola. She thought I was prank calling her when I left messages about the letter, but she called me back during an afternoon run to Waffle House. Now, she works with private clients and spends her downtime dabbling in Atlanta’s film industry. But in 2004, after her divorce, she returned to the city. Johnson left Atlanta in 1989 to live in Florida, where she married and became an adoptive parent. She graduated from Gordon High School and went on to work in the health care industry. Johnson, 66, said family members still live in the house on Fayetteville Court. Rochelle Johnson’s family had been among the first Black families to live on her block, she said. Terry Mill Elementary, where Johnson attended school, was 76% Black, the highest percentage in the district, and an indication that desegregation efforts were inconsistent. But major cultural shifts were happening around her.ĭeKalb County had begun to desegregate schools and had reassigned some students to neighborhood schools. Johnson’s letter was lighthearted - reflecting a child’s view of the world. Mazzola can’t remember his reaction to Johnson’s letter at the time, but he managed to bring it home with his other possessions. And another request, “I want you to right (sic) me back please.” Johnson told Mazzola about the rest of her typical pre-teen life - her friends, her boy problems and some of the latest dances, including the popcorn and the four corners. “I think all of you are handsome and tall,” she wrote. It seems Johnson also had seen images of the troops at war. Burke, she came from Vietnam and she have (sic) told us about you and the rest of you all,” wrote Johnson, likely referring to the teacher who gave the class the writing assignment. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a teacher because the lady named Mrs. On wide-ruled notebook paper, she wrote neat blocks of text in cursive. On March 17, Johnson composed her letter. But that spring, Mazzola and his fellow Marines were still seeing action. In the summer of that year, the Marine Corps’ role in the war would be greatly reduced. military involvement there through negotiations or turning combat over to the South Vietnamese. Richard Nixon had been sworn in as president and sought to end U.S. In 1969, the tides were changing in the Vietnam War. If we could know it, would it compel us to offer more kindness to each other?Įxplore OPINION: Rudeness is on the rise, but what’s behind the adult tantrums? I thought of all the ways - positive and negative - that we impact other people’s lives, even if we never know it. I agreed, largely because I wondered if little Rochelle had any idea that her letter would be significant enough for someone to save.
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