The Children

I've been on a bit of a Halberstam kick of late. Having recently
finished David Halberstam's book on the 1950's called "The Fifties,"
I've turned my attention to a remarkable book called "The Children,"
which is about a group of black college students from Tennessee who
help launch the non-violence aspects of the civil rights movement. It
has been sobering to read of how segregated America was back then:
imagine living in a world in which people don't want you to share the
same drinking fountains, restaurant counters, or social events because
of the color of your skin. And it has been inspiring to read of the
courage of these students, who helped each other believe that because
their cause was so right, no matter what they had to endure in the
interim they would overcome. We have made a lot of progress since
then, but we still have a ways to go; and we will always have a lot to
learn from these Tennessee students and others who stood up to hate
and neither blinked nor hit back.