306
viewsA reflection on the King holiday
By The Prozac Queen, Monday, January 17, 2011, 5 commentsI was inspired to write this post because of ReneeCK, another Skirt! lady I like to read from...atlanta.skirt.com/reneeck/blog/school-martin-luther-king-jr-day#comment-47374 . I figure it's only proper to link back to her post.
At the risk of sounding old, when I was a kid we didn't get MLK day off from school. I'm originally from NC and I don't think I got that day off from school up until maybe the seventh or eighth grade. I'm not sure if that was just our county, or if the whole state had school on that day up until then. Oh well, it doesn't much matter.
In elementary school, we would spend at least part of that day learning about MLK and what he stood for. I remember hearing at least part of the 'I Have A Dream' speech. We would have the usual 'Black History Month' lessons during February, but this particular day was usually spent talking about just his work and what he was up against. I remember when we were in third grade (about 1986) and beginning the lesson, my teacher read out a list of a bunch of things that were going on at the time that made the Civil Rights Movement necessary. We were outraged to hear about blacks and whites not being able to use the same water fountains, eat in the same restaurants, go to the same schools, etc. These were things that we never gave a second thought to because all we'd ever known was an integrated society. She mentioned incidents like blacks being squirted with fire hoses, but we weren't taught about lynchings. That might be a bit much for an eight-year-old. We were completely outraged that someone would be judged by their color rather than by their personality because, for the most part, we weren't taught to see things that way. All we cared about was whether or not someone could catch a ball or hogged the swingset. :)
Come to think of it, isn't that what MLK was talking about in his speech? Kids of different colors playing together and fighting over who gets to play with the ball? :)
Yes, there were and still are plenty of racists in North Carolina, more than I'd like to admit. Maybe I was just around a 'nicer crop', but basically my friends and I were taught that that sort of thing was flat-out wrong and that you should judge people by the content of their character and not what they look like. MLK day was usually used in school to drive that point home. I guess that's why I don't really have a problem with school being in on this day, because of how it can be used to honor him and those like him.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
5 Comments
Funny, I was just in
Funny, I was just in Charlotte today, at a school where a black man who was an associate dean at this particular college said he didn't have a big problem with kids going to school on this day, because MLK probably wouldn't want kids out today anyway. MLK was not just a statue encased in bronze or an excuse to be out of school - he had a dream- and that dream is alive and well today! He fought FOR the right for all kids, black, orange, purple , boys and girls, gays and everybody to go to school TOGETHER!And I guess that's what a LOT of them did, today.
Thanks for your comment! I
Thanks for your comment! I feel presumptuous saying this, but I wonder if MLK might be encouraged by the fact that people of all races are recognizing the importance of the Civil Rights movement? I know that might sound obvious to us but to my parents' generation, there was a lot of resistence to things such as integration. They might not have seen the benefits at the time, but we do.
I think people (whites) were
I think people (whites) were so scared they didn't really listen to his message. Southern Daisy had a nice blog about this too this week, and I enjoyed reading the words more closely...
*And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."
I don't take it that he was talking about only the blacks being free, but ALL of us being free from our prejudices.
I think people (whites) were
I think people (whites) were so scared they didn't really listen to his message. Southern Daisy had a nice blog about this too this week, and I enjoyed reading the words more closely...
*And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."
I don't take it that he was talking about only the blacks being free, but ALL of us being free from our prejudices.
Good point...prejudice is
Good point...prejudice is something that can hold anyone back. I'll never understand how some people can be that way.
Participate More