My 5 year old daughter is learning about MLK day at her school.

Here is the conversation:

"Papa, who is Dr Martin Luther King"

"Well baby, he is an American hero who died for what he believed"

"Who killed him Papa"

"Bad guys killed him dear" (best logic I could find)

"What did he do Papa"

"Well baby, you know our next door neighbors that are black? When I was a kid your age, we couldn't go play next door with our black friends, and we couldn't even live in the same nieghborhood- and Dr Martin Luther King helped make it possible so that we can be friends with our nieghbors, and you can play with your black friends that come over each week- we couldn't do that when I was a kid"

"Papa, they told me you had to have seperate bathrooms, one for white poeple, and another for poeple with colors on thier skin" (exact quote) "And papa, the next door nieghbors are not black, they are brown, and I am not white, I am kinda biege- only you and brother are white" (me and my boy are so white we are transluscent)

"Yes baby, that is true, but we are not supposed to call our next door nieghbors "colored" if we need to describe thier skin color, we call them black, otherwise you say with respect, like I taught you, Mr and Mrs _____"

Then, I realized, MLKs "I have a dream" speech had come at least partially true- my daughter could not understand why little black kids and little white kids could not play together in my time- at which time, it brought a tear to this mean old cynical jaded worldly biker Papa- his life was not ended for nothing, his dream had come true- even if it is just a small part of that dream- but a very large part for me.

Melted all my anger at our current politics and situation for just a small time.

I went ahead and bought a picture and had it framed for my daughter- and put it right next to her grand uncle that died in Vietnam and others in our family that sacrificed themselves doing what they believed was thier duty.