A King and a Prince

Martin Luther KING Jr, and PRINCE Caspian of Narnia to be exact. 

Who knew the two would work magic together in our world tonight. 

Today was the day when, as a nation, we celebrate and remember one of the most influential humans of our time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

I've always struggled with how to explain the darkest parts of our nation's history to the kids.  They are so innocent still, and I hate to destroy their naive ignorance of the evil that exists in this world.  Theirs is a small, insular world of unconditional love and a million second chances, where the most awful infraction is telling a fib or smacking a sibling. 

Marc and I have done that on purpose - it's been a conscious effort to let them keep their innocence as long as possible.  We don't watch the news in their presence, we don't get the newspaper at home, and we don't share national tragedies with them unless they directly affect them or the people we love. So how do you explain why scads of Americans thought segregation was a brilliant idea, to kids who don't have any overt experience with racism?   We are currently reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader  as we continue enjoying the Chronicles of Narnia. We started with The Magician's Nephew, then The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, moved on to A Horse and His Boy, and skipped over Prince Caspian because the library at Molly's school didn't have it and she was so excited to find The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that we decided to throw caution to the mainsail and skip ahead.

The story in a nutshell (up to where we are) is that Lucy and Edmund are sent to spend the summer with their perfectly dreadful cousin Eustace and on the very first day, as Eustace is teasing Lucy for her love of a painting on the wall (a painting of a dragon-headed ship on a tumultuous sea) the painting comes to life as a window into Narnia.  Before they know it, the cousins are swept out to sea and rescued by the ship, which happens to be the Dawn Treader, the ship of the Pevensie's friend Caspian, who became King hundreds of years after their own reign (in Narnian time, which runs nothing like Earth time).

 They join Caspian's crew and head off to the Lone Islands in search of some important advisors who had been banished years ago by Caspian's uncle who wanted the crown for himself. On the way, they just happen to be kidnapped by pirates who plan to sell them into slavery.

 How apropos that on the day we honor Dr. King, C.S. Lewis gift-wrapped my lead-in to explain segregation to children who have no idea how blessed they are to have friends that span the rainbow! To them, the idea of judging someone by the color of their skin and not by the content of their character, is as foreign as a third arm.

I did my best to explain to Molly and Ben that segregation was a result of the racism created by a slave trade wherein white people deluded themselves that Africans were not equal to them, and therefore, appropriate to claim as property.  Even the Civil War, which claimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans and the Emancipation proclamation by Abraham Lincoln did not erase those feelings which were embedded in the culture and passed down through generations as a bizarre birthright. Some of the lengthy Q&A that followed...

Why did Dr. King die?

He was killed by someone very misguided.

Why was he killed?

Because the person who killed him was afraid of the power of the ideas Dr. King was sharing with America, that people should be treated as equals regardless of the color of their skin.  The person thought that if they killed Dr. King, his ideas would die with him.

But his ideas didn't die with him, right?

No, the person who killed Dr. King did the exact opposite of that.  

Dr. King's ideas became even MORE powerful after he died.

Did other people die?

Yes, others died or were hurt or scared  by the people who wanted things to stay the way they were.

Why were those people so mean?

Because they thought they were right, and they were afraid of things being different.

What did they do?

They intimidated people by threatening to hurt them or their families, they burned crosses on people's lawns, they beat people up or threw things through people's windows

That sounds scary.  Why didn't the police arrest them?

Sometimes they did.  But sometimes they coudln't catch them all.  And sometimes the police were helping them because they thought the same way.

At this point, Ben said "Well, I'd just kick them in the face!" to which I explained, "But Dr. King wouldn't want you to do that.  He'd tell you to stay calm and be peaceful.  If you hurt people, then they'll get mad and say "See, I told you those people were evil!" and keep on believing the wrong things.  But if you stay calm, you can show them there's a different way."

But what if they hate you or hurt you anyway?
That's a risk many people took.  And some of them were hated, or hurt, or killed.  But finally, enough people believed in doing things a new way that our country changed the laws to end segregation.

And now everyone can be equal and not have to drink from separate fountains?

Well, segregation by race is illegal now, but everyone still is not treated as equal. There's still work to be done to make that dream come true.  That's one of the reasons we celebrate Martin Luther King day - to remind ourselves that it takes every one of us working together to build a world like the one Dr. King imagined.