First-Grader’s Kind Gesture Toward Only Black Student in Class Leads to 50-Year Friendship

Courtesy of LeeAnn Polster

An act of kindness from a first-grader to her classmate on the first day of school changed everything for one terrified Texas student.

This was in the 1970s, when young Kimberly Patman’s household was the first black family to enroll in the Cedar Hill school district in Dallas. She still remembers the moment a little girl tapped her on the shoulder during recess at Bray Elementary. It was an offer of friendship from fellow first-grader LeeAnn Polster.