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Reflections on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2002of past anger resonates yet; through the empty streets as well as the busy ones, through the cracked walls at home, and along the fingertips of children who haven't been taught even half the facts in our unsegregated but still separated schools. Martin Luther King Jr.'s day is explained by most modern teachers only as a boring formality, instead of as the fierce and frightening event that had this country ripped wide: white teenagers, no older than they, pelting peaceful black protesters with rocks. Chicago riots, where police officers nearly beat normal citizens to death. Mike Royco even once wrote a column about a tavern drinker, not two days beyond, saying King should have been killed sooner. The bar's patrons laughed heartily and agreed. But which child would know of such atrocities when their lazy, uninterested schoolteachers don't even care enough to know it themselves? Yes, 38 years have cooled the flames, but one can still sense the heat. The vibration from a once thundering boom still tickles the little hairs in our ears when we gaze at his black and white photos. Even though you were never a slave and I was never your holder, the debris from past injustices sometimes keeps the lot of us bickering as if that were recently the case. But in a more rational view, it's the ignorance of how real the past was that truly leaves us feeling guilty this morning. all works on this page Copyright 2002 by Paul Ryan .
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