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| Book Courtesy of Random House. |
Recently Random House asked if I would participate in a book
tour of Kadir Nelson’s beautifully illustrated new book on Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s I Have A Dream speech. I quickly responded that I would love
to. I mean how hard could it be to be
involved with blogging about a wonderful book?
I had seen the book, I knew the speech, and spent many years teaching
about Dr. King’s dream. Well, it has
turned out to be quite challenging.
Fifty years later Race is still a tough topic to
broach. As a white male teacher I try to
make my classroom as culturally responsive as possible, but I know that it
isn’t always the way I want it to be.
There are times when different cultures and races do clash. For example black youths are still targeted
for walking down the street, and college students spew racist hatred on reality
TV shows.
So, as I am writing this and looking at Mr. Nelson’s
paintings and listen to Dr. King’s words I know there has been great changes in
the past 50 years. We have an
African-American president, but at the same only 10% of children’s picture
books have main characters of color.
As I share this book with my students I hope that we can
continue the conversation and wonder if they will make the changes that will make
Dr. King’s words ring true?
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