Hamilton Elementary School

If you spent some time in the 1960s receiving a public school education in a small New England town, it is possible that you have a story like mine, and I hope that the day that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated is as memorable for you as it is for me.
I am quite sure that in April of 1968 there were no African-​American children in my school. I had just turned 10 when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, but I do not remember hearing his name before that day in April when our principal, Everett J. Hopkins, called the entire school on to the front lawn to explain the significance of who this man was, and the tragedy that had transpired.
Somewhat numbed by the killing of JFK, and after much chest beating and hair pulling from our senior family members and friends over that event, with the Vietnam War beating a steady drumbeat in the background, it seemed a nice spring day to be outside of the tar-​dripping asbestos tiled ceilings of Hamilton Elementary School, and really: what choice did we have?
Mr. Hopkins, a direct descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a watercress farmer, baker and educator, so much wanted us to know, boys and girls on the lawn, what we had lost. He wanted us to know, so much, that he broke down in tears, and could not finish what he wanted to say.
So we were left with this: we still did not know what a black person was, what freedom they might have been denied: but it was enough. Whoever MLK Jr. was, and whoever took his life, whatever impact it might have had on the world… his brutal passing had made our kind and gentle leader cry.
He tried so hard, Everett J. Hopkins, to explain to us. He stood handsome and proud, and he probably felt he was not really up to the task as he dissolved into tears. But I know that I am not the only child from that horrible spring day on the lawn of Hamilton Elementary School who remembers, and so: a big thank you to the global thinking members of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, to Everett J. Hopkins and to Hamilton Elementary School, for teaching us about the world beyond.