Samuel & Martin Luther King

I had an interesting, yet very sweet, conversation with Samuel yesterday afternoon.  When he got in the car from school, he started talking about his birthday (which is at the end of March).  I'm not sure how he got onto that subject, but we were talking about what kind of party he'd have & he said that he just wanted "love & presents" for his birthday.  I giggled about that & then asked what kind of presents he was thinking about.  He named off a thing or two, but I was intrigued at one particular gift he listed.  A picture of Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Hmm....now, if you don't know or if you have forgotten, we are white.  We have raised our children to be color blind & I love that sweet part of them that sees no boundaries between themselves & people with different skin tones.  But even this....asking for a picture of MLK....kind of surprised me.  Really?  A picture of Martin Luther King, Jr.?

 

So I asked him why he wanted a picture of Mr. King.  His response (in a very "duh!!!!" sort of tone) was "Because we're both soldiers mom!".

 

Umm....ok.  Soldiers?

 

"Yes mom.  We're just alike."

 

Now I had to stifle my giggles because I was thinking of the obvious differences, but I loved his passion & enthusiasm, so I let him continue.

 

"We both want people with brown skin to be able to go to the same places & do the same things as people with white skin.  It's not fair when they can't."

 

I agreed with him & told him that he was right.  Those are very important things and we have Mr. King to be grateful to for part of that.  We talked about Mr. King's part in the fight for the rights of African-Americans.  I had to grin, knowing that yesterday was his first day back to school after a holiday for MLK Day.  I'm sure they must've talked about this at school yesterday....but still, his innocence tickles me.

 

Yep...my baby & Martin Luther King.....they're JUST ALIKE!  :)