I went to elementary school in Bayside. Queens, New York. I was there for kindergarten through fifth grade. That would have been 1971 – 1977. I remember my kindergarten teacher taking away my grandfather’s pocketknife when I was playing with it in class one day. She never gave it back. More than likely, it wasn’t a knife at all, but a shiny silver colored nail clipper in a black case. It was cool. My grandfather had died around then or just before, and she never did give it back.

I remember being in first grade with my cousin who was in second grade. It was a multi-age classroom that they were trying out.

I remember forgetting my glasses at home and my Dad, who was home resting after back surgery came to school to bring them to me. I hated my glasses. I think the school nurse gave me a guilt trip about making my Dad bring them.

I remember my principal, Mr. Picelli asking me if I had a twin because my picture was on his supervisor’s desk. She looked exactly like me. Exactly.

I remember the Bicentennial. It was kind of a big deal.

The $2 Bill returned to circulation for the Bicentennial. We almost never used them, but collected them. My husband still carries one on his wallet.

I only remember a handful of friends from those days in elementary school. We moved at the end of fifth grade out to the suburbs and another elementary school. Two of the boys in my class stand out; one for his outgoing, loud and friendly ways and the other for his quiet manner and the postcards he sent after he moved. It was either third grade or fourth grade.

As a kid I didn’t notice bussing when it happened. It is only in hindsight that I discerned the change from all white classrooms to mixed race. I don’t remember my parents ever talking about bussing or Black kids coming to school. I think the label African-American still hadn’t come into convention; not until people began to reclaim their pre-slavery heritage.

It was a new school year, and it felt…normal; no big deal. It must have been a huge deal for the kids pulled out of their neighborhood schools to come to ours.

The new kids blended in with the rest of us. I knew they took buses to school when I walked, and they didn’t live in my court. I knew our court, the playground behind our apartment, the big road where I wasn’t allowed, the post office where my parents worked, Joe’s Pizza, and the Chinese restaurant. There was also the drug store where we bought my parents cigarettes (Pall Mall) and my doctor’s office. That was my neighborhood: a handful of shops and about two dozen families.

Once when the bus passed us, I waved to Lonnie. In my memory, he looks sad, but it was probably more that he was quiet on the bus rather than his usual gregarious self in the classroom. In the class, I remember him hopping from one desk to the next, touching everyone with a pat, on the head, on the arm, laughing that he was giving us chicken pox. I laughed too and told him I’d had them already. He had a light complexion and a flat face. His hair was everywhere, not tall or high hair, but big. I don’t think I’d ever seen an afro that wild. I loved it. I remember that he bothered some of the kids in the class but he didn’t bother me. If he were in school today, I’d  think he had ADHD, but the possibility is there that he stood out so much on his own because he didn’t want to stand out.

Robert, the other friend I remember, was the exact opposite. His hair was short, cut close to his head, and his hair and skin were so dark, the color of night, and I thought beautiful. I had a crush on him. He was kind and soft-spoken. About halfway through the year he and his family moved to Africa. I remember it as a going home but it may have been an extended vacation. I don’t know. He sent us two postcards, but I only remember the one: the orange burst of a sunset in a place I thought I’d never see.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear

Earlier this weekend, my son asked why we have to celebrate Martin Luther King Day? I was a little appalled at the question. I asked how he felt learning about George Washington. He felt the same way. Part of me was glad it was his dislike of history rather than some kind of bias. I wasn’t quite sure what to say to him other than that it’s important for everyone to know what he did, what others like him died for, that the civil rights movement was ongoing, even today.

It might be good news that he didn’t think it was a big deal because for him there is no question about equal rights between the races. No one’s told him any different and for him, the civil rights movement is history; it isn’t a current event for him. Like most white Americans, he lives in a post-racial America. It’s very different for Black kids his age and older. But in our house, we do know who Trayvon Martin is; who Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice are.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The last presidential election, when I heard Rep. John Lewis of Georgia talk about voter disenfranchment I got chills listening to him, a living icon of the civil rights movement. I’m in the middle of reading The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson about the Great Black Migration from the South to the North and West that took place from 1915 to 1970. Knowing the history and recognizing some names in passing, cities that will always stand out, like Birmingham and Selma, and Little Rock; this book moved me to tears when I was least expecting it. I have to pause at each chapter to absorb what was going on in the lives of Black men and women at those times, and still today. I needed time to think; to reflect on something I sometimes think I can relate to, but I can’t quite.

Growing up Jewish I always felt a connection to African Americans, and civil rights. I was proud to have Sammy Davis, Jr. and Rod Carew as two of my people. I think it was the parallels of slavery that drew us together in the first place, outsiders looking in, natural allies, and I’m more than a little saddened at how the two groups who should be standing up for each other seem to have moved apart in recent years.

Martin Luther King Day should be a day to commemorate Dr. King’s life, his works, and his assassination, but it is also a time to regroup; to reevaluate how far rights have come and how far they have yet to go. It’s time to realize the steps back and reclaim them.

The movement is not over; it is still moving forward and Dr. King reminds us that the way is not finished. Each generation picks up its part and carries it further. These are not Black rights, or white rights; these are civil rights and they’re for everyone.

When you make rights available for more people, they do not get more rights; you do not get less rights; everyone gets equal rights and that is what we should all be striving for.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.