I try to teach the Lone Star Girl about the importance of standing up for everyone's civil rights at every opportunity and generally take the occasion of this day of remembrance for Dr. King to read books like Sister Anne's Hands by Marybeth Lorbiecki that teach about racial equality or, now that she is old enough, to watch movies that teach about the history of the civil rights movement or about racial harmony. Ruby Bridges, The Long Walk Home and The Color of Friendship have been our favorites.
I only today realized that I had not told my daughter about the closest that I ever came to Dr. King, the amazing day that I met his son, Martin Luther King III. Dr. King's accomplishments, though they will live forever, occured before my time, but the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that he led still exists today. When I was in college and was protesting the first Iraq war, my university's peace coalition participated in several SCLC-organized peace demonstrations. One night, the SCLC brought Martin Luther King III to speak at our university. He spoke about living the peace that his father taught and being there was just amazing to my friends and I...we were star-struck. After the speech, we went out to dinner at The Kettle with him and his bodyguards and spent a blissful evening talking about the ideals we were working towards. I will always remember the feeling. I told my daughter about that night today. I want her to know that peace is an honorable thing to care about, something cared about by the most honorable among us, as well as her own little family.
4 comments:
Wow! What a thing to live up to, being named after MLK, Jr. It's great that he's doing so many wonderful things, but I wonder if he ever had aspirations to live the quiet life of a carpenter or small-town liberal arts professor. With a name like Martin Luther King III, there is no way you can fade into the woodwork.
That's true, but his life probably did not lend itself to quiet aspirations, except maybe in moments when escape seemed desirable, I would guess. His father was not his only close family member that was murdered by racists, he told us...and of course his house got bombed when he was little. He's had to have bodyguards...I don't think the world would have allowed him any place to just be anonymous no matter what. He has carried it well, though. I found him very impressive - devoted to his ideals, not at all bitter about his family's sufferings, just a really good person ready to lead others. I am always so impressed with people who are so selfless in their ambitions. I know a state legislator here who has a couple of little kids and she has trudged off to Austin for six months at a time every two years to fight for things that all Texas children need, leaving her own kids at home except for visits. She does the hard stuff in Austin that is not fun like working closely with Republicans on the budget because she has the strength to stand it ...I could never give up my own family to help others... I could give up other things, but not my family life. I am angry at jealous at the ways in which I have had to miss my family and have them miss me as it is and I have had the priviledge of being socially useful in my job...but I don't appreciate it. People like them, able to embrace such selfless ambitions for humanity, are the real heroes in this world, I think.
I remember taking my baby sis through The MLK Jr. museum in Memphis and you can walk right through the room he was in last, to the patio he was shot on. It was one the most intense moments of my life. She was only 8 years old. I hope that moment meant something significant to her. It certainly did to me. It was purely shocking and intoxicating.
She's almost 20 and we both remember it like it was yesterday.
What an amazing experience to pass on to Lone Star Girl. I can tell already that she is a devoted civil rights activist- good job, Ma!
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