Pain of the Past & the Future

With my third grade students, we have been reading about Martin Luther King Jr and the protests that took place in the South, including Bloody Sunday.  After our reading, I encouraged them to write who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about what they read.  Some of their questions were pretty typical, such as "Who killed MLK?" and "Why did they use tear gas?".  However, some of their questions caught me off guard "Why did they hate black people?"  "Why didn't they want people to mix?"

I have to admit that to hear those questions struck a cord within my soul.  How could I explain the hatred that lives, and still lives, within the hearts of others?  Was it my place to go into detail of why some people felt an automatic disdain for people who were not Caucasian?

I did my best to explain why people felt hatred towards others of a different race.  The hardest part was explaining that during the civil rights movement, they wouldn't be able to be friends with their classmates of color.  The look of disbelief on their faces could break even the hardest of hearts.  They honestly did not understand how  people could dislike someone simply because they had a different skin tone.

Another hard part was that I had to bite my tongue before my brain started spilling out that it is possible that this type of hatred is coming back into the spotlight.  It was difficult to not say that people are being hated this very day simply because people that practice a certain spiritual path are being singled out and being punished simply because of the bad choices of a few people.

I can only hope that I never have to explain why people are being singled out, abused, and made to feel like they are second class citizens simply because of their religion.