Swimming in Equality
I have many times through the years talked of Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a Dream" speech to my many students. I have a poster of Dr. King with the speech written on it in my classroom. As an educator, I have hoped , prayed for and spoke out for equality within the schools. I have been discouraged and outraged at how the educated seem to have less of an education and only mere schooling. I feared that we would never be equal communing together and learning from one another. Yet today in one of the most unexpected places, I found this equality, this communal togetherness in brotherly respect. My heart sang within "free at last free at last", as children of colors , religion and economic status played together in the local public pool.
It is hard to believe that in the segregated past, whites would have rather drained and cemented a pool over than share it with their black brothers and sisters. I guess that is just it, though they spoke of Christian love, they did not see anyone not of the white race as a brother or sister in Christ.
I still can't fathom, how they justified their actions in nightly prayer. Did they actually pray, "Father, help us keep anyone of color out of our neighborhoods, our schools and public swimming pools" ? I don't think or I hope they were not that ignorant in their prayers to think God, would protect their lily white racism with continued segregation. Of course these are the people who, picture Jesus pale and blue eyed... I wonder how many children in Israel are pale white? These "Christians", would have never allowed little Jesus, a Jew to swim in their pools. Their Jesus, is somehow not Jewish or is an "ok Jew". God forgive them for they know not what they do.
This takes me back to the pool. Today I decided to go for a swim in the public pool here in Boston. Boston, who once fought integration and the busing of students. The Boston that was televised on National TV as mothers yelled the hateful "N-word and chucked rocks at the yellow buses carrying students who only wished to be educated equally. This Boston, is not changed to be an Utopian city of equality...but it has become a more tolerant accepting city and one that I am now proud to call home.
As I walked up to the pool, I was amazed at all the various races swimming , sunning and playing together. There was a mixture not only of races but levels of economic status as well. There were the students in the corner reading books from Harry Potter, to Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children. There were the group of bikini-ed girls tanning and sipping diet coke, the families , the teenage belly floppers judging each others splash and the homeless all sharing the same water...the same pool; and as John the Baptist , baptized Christ, we were baptized in equality. I felt God's words " these are my children for whom I am well pleased", showering a blessing over each of us.
Those of us who have more curves than we would like were mixed in with the barbie dolls, those who spoke English only were mixed in with many foreign tongues, and the pristine preppies educated in the local private college sat and talked with the local kids grateful there was no charge for swimming. We mixed together , splashing , swimming and basking in the glory those in previous years fought to gain.
In the past many people of color were brave enough to swim in a pool, only to be drug out, beaten and jailed, they fought for the right to be treated with equality and cool off in the pool filled with water given by God himself. Their battle in the past, has been my reward of today. I am not a woman of color, but a fair skinned English speaking blond, and I have had the great opportunity to spend the afternoon with my brethren. We seemed to be given an extra gift of beautiful clear water.... the very things the bigots of the past feared would be dirtied by the mixing of races.
I hope that this extension of togetherness and playful communion, would last past summer and beyond the gates of the public pool and find it's way into our schools, churches, government and hearts of all citizens. I hope that Dr. King looking down from above can see his words fulfilled,
"And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Equality- togetherness 5 out of 5 fist shakes in celebration!
