MLK on You Tube

There is a lot of garbage on the Internet and a lot of nonsense on You Tube. But I think it is all worth it. Since we are coming up on Martin Luther King's birthday and Black History Month, the little Janes have been working on school assignments about African Americans and the civil rights movement. Tonight one of them had a worksheet on Martin Luther King. I asked if they had heard his "I Have a Dream Speech." They had not. I found one on the web and played it for the family on the laptop. The youngest little Jane was restless but the rest of us just sat and listened. I had a sense of how families must have listened to the radio in pre-tv days. Call it corny, but to me it was a real touchstone moment. We talked a little bit afterward about the profound effect of nonviolent social change. You never know how much of this kind of thing sinks in, but if you don't do it, you are guaranteed that none of it does.