For me, personally, there is no historical educational experience that is more powerful than walking the exact ground and seeing with my own eyes where history was made.
On January 20, 1997, as our nation was pausing to celebrate and remember the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., I along with my sons, Chad and Courtney, and Paul Osborne and his son, Josh, had the privilege of walking a part of our nation’s history at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN.
It was a day that two fathers and three sons would not soon forget.
Both Paul and I had told our sons of the events of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 and what we knew of the civil rights movement.
After a very brief time at the museum, it was all too clear—I really knew very little of the actual civil rights movement and my sons knew less.
Together we listened to speeches of Dr. King and sat on a trolley car similar to the one on which Rosa Parks sat on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, AL.
For all of us, there was a very emotional moment as we took our turns looking into the motel room where Dr. King was staying until that fateful moment when he stepped out onto the balcony seconds before his life was tragically taken from our nation and the world.
The point of this is not to brag about our trip on that incredible day. It is to suggest that as parents and grandparents, we must preserve the history of our nation. To do so, we should look for teachable moments when we are in a position take advantage of opportunities which afford us the opportunity to take a walk in history with our children and grandchildren.
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