My MLK Heroes

Today's post is from a guest writer - my own Mom. She wrote to us kids about what the Holiday meant to her, and it gave me understanding about how we were raised, in a home where people were equal no matter what they looked like. If anything, her comments speak loudly to the ideology of embracing change at home first and in the community second. There is no doubt in my mind now that my grandparents were the extraordinary people I knew them to be.
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My MLK Heroes
by Helen Clark

Happy holiday! Don't know how you are acknowledging this day, but I want to share some of the things going through my mind on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

1. YEARS ago, during my pre-school years in Grove City MN, I witnessed my mother and father take a strong stand for "civil rights". A young couple moved to GC, I believe he had just finished U of Minn. medical school, to open a practice. There had not been a doctor in GC for several years. The good Doctor and his wife were Jewish. They had one little girl, and another was born to them while in GC. My Mom and Dad immediately introduced themselves to the family, and through the years became very close friends -- a friendship that continued after the couple moved back to Minneapolis for their children to go to school in a private school -- a friendship that continued when our family lived in Minneapolis, and later when my parents came back on visits from Alaska. As you can expect, the hostility of some of the Scandinavians, including Grandma Peterson, toward them was so hurtful, and so un-Christlike for a community that had to be 95% Lutheran or Baptist. Even good friends of our family who lived a couple doors from them, didn't ever seem to be a part of the get-togethers...
2. During war, my Dad was transferred by Northwest Airlines to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Southern Ohio - outside of Dayton. We were housed in a barracks-like community rapidly thrown up on a field outside of Vandalia. Our first Sunday there we walked to the Baptist Church (Dad had an "unlimited gas card' because of his work, but he didn't waste it on unnecessary trips!) to find it was "pure white", even though the area had many black families. As I understand it, Dad making conversation, kindly I'm sure, said something to the effect that knowing many black people were Baptists, was surprised to see none at church. He was told that they had their own church. We never went back! The next Sunday we visited an Evangelical United Brethren Church which was integrated, way back in 1943, and that became our church, with Mom and Dad singing in the choir with many of the black members. A family from Minneapolis that came with us to Vandalia - name was Clark! - was a black family. Their kids went to a separate but very un-equal school on the opposite side of town where a brand new school was built for this wave of new families. I remember that we had a talk at our house about this, because the Clark daughter was my friend..."Not Fair!" It must have been painfully hard for that family to come from the "north" to the "south"....
3. We were in the East on the summer of the "I Have A Dream" speech. Ken Gilpin arranged for a cab driver friend, a black man, to give Dad and I a tour of Washington, D.C. Jan and Karen stayed with Ken's mother. I remember him saying that it was good we were there now, because he didn't know but that there would be riots to go with the gathering that was being planned... (I don't think the riots materialized, but the effect of the speech is being felt right now!)
   

I am so thankful for my Father and Mother and for the many examples of the core values of love and acceptance that were a part of their relationships all the days of their lives. You kids spending formative years in Sand Point AK, and the wonderful choices of friends you have made across racial lines carry on their passion.

I'm sure you've heard these stories, but think that today is an appropriate time to tell them once more.

Love, Mom