Overheard in Room 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. edition

We had a long discussion in Room 4 about our history and former injustices. We watched a movie that reenacted scenes from young Martin's life, showed some of his speeches and talked about his goals in changing people's attitudes with non-violence.

I cannot stress to you how fantastic my class is: they took all of this in with genuine astonishment (they just kept saying "But that doesn't make sense! Skin color doesn't matter!") and were able to carry on a mature and thoughful discussion that would be beyond the reach of many adults.

Below are some of their responses to questions about treatment of people with "different color skin," why America is a great place to live, and how things have changed now. I promise these are real responses, only edited by me in that I couldn't write fast enough to get down their entire responses!

• "America is a great country because we can change everything when you want it."
• "I don't care about nothing except sharing, giving and love. If I was Martin Luther King, Jr, I would feel just like him."
• "We have a president that has dark skin. Skin color does not matter. That means we can have a president that is Chinese, English, Spanish, yellow skin or dark skin."
• "Things have changed because someone else of a different color can go with someone else of a different color. Now they can sit wherever they want." (As opposed to having to stand on the bus. This seemed to really bother them. A handful of students was convinced I was making Rosa Park's story up, and even came back the next day and talked about "that story you told us that wasn't true.")
• "I don't care what color we are. A long a go, Barack Obama could not have been president. Since Martin Luther King, Jr. changed it, now we can be all mixed up."
• "If anyone doesn't like each other, they should just be nice. If our president can be a different color, it doesn't matter what color skin is."

Say what you will about politics, race and the like, but those thoughts coming out of little mouths in the purest form of expression, and it is too bad it gets lost as we get older...