Traveling Teacher: Owning History

One of the hardest things that we can do as a human family is to own our history.  There are moments where poor choices have been made.  We are human.  But, there can also be a lesson learned, so the same mistakes are not repeated in the future. 

We cannot rewrite our past no matter how terrible, sad, or chilling it is.  It has happened.  At the same time, we cannot beat ourselves in the present for past deeds by others. We did not create them.  But, we have a duty to humanity that we recognize atrocity when it has happened and try to make reciprocity.  This is what it means to be human.

This is a challenging topic, because there are so many perspectives about past events based on life experiences, beliefs and values, and cultural roots.  My hope is that we own our history without justification.  We own the mistakes.  

At the same time, we celebrate how we have evolved from where we began. 

In the video below, I am owning my history.  It is at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee and also the Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. 

I remember the first time I walked up to this site.  I couldn't believe it was so exposed to the elements, yet looked exactly the same as it did in 1968.  I stood in the parking lot and cried crocodile tears.  I wept for the choices of the past: segregration, lynchings, slavery, and every type of inhumanity that has taken place against black people in America.  I wept for the black people who are still be targeted in America.  I wept for learners at my last school who are trying to break the chains of poverty in their community.  I wept for injust behavior in the world.  

As people, we cannot move forward until we own our history and weep for those who have suffered and try to make it better for those who are living in the present.