Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
After being called that name, I think this is when the author realized what race really means. At eight years old he sees that he has a different colored skin and doesn’t look the same as most of the kids in Baltimore. This is why the author says “I saw the whole of Baltimore”, because at that point, he is probably getting stared at from a lot of kids and sees that they are white and he is black. He is surrounded by these white children who are the whole part of Baltimore.