Yesterday was Martin Luther King day, and we had the day of school. Last week, however, Ginger’s daughter’s teacher did something so awesome I had tears in my eyes while reading Ginger’s post:

Then the next day, her entire grade was divided into the blue people
and the yellow people. One group was blue for the first part of the
day, and then after lunch, they traded and became the yellow group so
they could see both sides of the equation. Signs were put up at the
restrooms, water fountains and cafeteria… “Yellow Only” so they could
understand what it was like to feel excluded…just as it was only 45
years ago.

I’m not old enough to remember the "Whites Only" water fountains, but my mom is. She tells a story of how they took a trip to Atlanta when she was a kid (Mom’s from Indiana) and she saw a sign that said "Colored Water". Naturally, she got really excited thinking she was going to get to drink some blue or possibly even pink or purple water. She broke away from her mother’s hand and dashed over to the water fountain.

People around her gasped and my grandfather grabbed her hand and told her she wasn’t to drink from that fountain. All day she pouted, until finally my grandmother asked her what the problem was. Mom explained that she didn’t think it was fair that she couldn’t drink the colored water. Who got to drink that colored water, and why wasn’t she good enough for the colored water?

My grandmother took my mom into her lap and explained how "colored people", as they were called at the time, were treated unfairly by having to drink from separate water fountains and use separate, usually poorly maintained bathrooms. She explained how African American people had to go to separate and definitely unequal schools. This conversation stuck in my mom’s mind forever.

I wish I could say my mom went on to become a freedom rider and marched for equality, but she did not. She grew up and became a teacher, and taught in inner city schools. She fought to teach kids who already had many disadvantages thrown at them- both black and white students. And she treated them all equally. And they learned.

I wish I could say all the students my mom taught in the inner city went on to become scientists and doctors and accountants, but they didn’t. Some of her students grew up to become criminals and she read about them in the news with sadness. But some of them grew up to go to college and kept in contact with her. Some of them are making a big difference in the world. Some for good, some for bad.

All because of the "colored water" fountain?