MLK Day - Personal Reflection!
Christine Hurt over at Conglomerate offers some "reality" on the MLK holiday and the recognition of youth today!Happy MLK Day!
If you want a reminder of how far our society has come in the last 40 years, try explaining the impact of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement to a 5 1/2 year-old. As I explained to Carter how, in the year that my sister was born, she could not have taken swimming lessons with her friend Cassidy, or gone to the same school as her friend Cade, she looked at me and said, "You're joking." When I went on to explain to her segregated bathrooms, segregated water fountains, and struggles to vote, she was completely taken aback. I will be the first to admit that we do not live in a color-blind society, but my daughter's incredulousness at daily life in 1964 has to be a sign of progress.
So, this makes me wonder what views are held by a majority of the population today that will be inconceivable to a kindergartener 40 years from now?
The item brought to me a photo-of-the-mind of my early youth (perhaps ages 3-5). I was a "privledged white kid".....my grandfather was the chief of a TVA Dam in Alabama and I was sheltered, etc. I had (in 1944-45) a "mammy"....Virgie, bless her soul, was my mother for those two years. She raised me, taught me, fed me, and made me aware of right and wrong. Virgie was also thought of VERY highly by my folks and grandparents. I was Baptised in her church in Town Creek, Alabama!
What was then "acceptable" and even right by the standards of white society has changed so very, very much.....
I am often embarassed by the times, and the fact of our involvement with Virgie! I very well remember by questioning one afternoon my Grandfather when we took Virgie home in our shiny black Packard.....Grandpa drove, I sat/stood in front and Virgie had to ride in back. Grandpa told me "it was necessary".....never could figure that out.
I still love Virgie.....
Duke
posted by Duke of DeLand @ 1/17/2005 05:49:00 PM
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