Hairspray and The Balcony

The girls had been asking to go the Civil Rights Museum, located here in Memphis and built around the hotel where Martin Luther King was shot in 1968. For a couple of years, I'd been resisting, thinking they were just not ready to learn in that much detail about that struggle. There's some part of me that is thankful for the fact that, to them, people of color are just people with skin of another color. With their open hearts and open minds, they DO judge people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. How much is too much to teach your children about segregation, racism, hatred--and at what age? Of course, they are white, so it's easy for me to wax philosophical about how it seems like things are sweet and innocent for them. My friends who are African-American have told me stories that would curl your hair about the racism their children experience, however subtle. But I CAN tell you with certainty that my children are not being raised to treat anyone differently because of color. And I think that color blindness was something I wanted to protect.

It seems crazy but the ultimate decision-maker here was "Hairspray." A movie, then a Broadway musical, then a remake of the movie, Hairspray takes place in Baltimore in the early 1960s. A heavy-set white girl who loves to dance wins a spot on an American Bandstand-meets-Mickey Mouse Club-style show and decides to fight to integrate the show. Until then, the wholesome-appearing white kids danced most of the time and once a month, the black kids danced on "Negro Day." Tracy, who faces plenty of hatred herself for being chubby, vows to integrate, and is even arrested, all with the cheery numbers you'd expect from a Broadway musical. The girls have seen the remake at least a dozen times and we recently saw an incredible production of the musical at a local professional community theater. We talked about integration, the word "Negro," prejudice. And they asked again to go to the Civil Rights Museum. I finally relented.

At the museum, we started with the film, "The Witness," which is the story of the sanitation workers' strike as told by the Rev Billy Kyles, one of King's best friends, who was intimately involved in the strike and in the Memphis visit--and one of the men on the balcony with King when he was shot. The footage was real and vivid. The girls were sad--and confused: Why were the police beating people up? I thought police were the good guys. Why did they spray that little girl in the eyes? That man is bleeding--did he die? They were mesmerized as they listened to the Mountaintop speech, which King delivered the night before he was killed, and understood the Biblical references from that speech. As we left the film room, they were quiet.

But the quiet didn't last. Soon, they launched into a flood of questions. Prompted by the exhibits, we talked about the KKK, about Brown v Board of Ed, about Rosa Parks, about George Wallace, about Selma and Birmingham and jails and separate restrooms and lunch counters and freedom rides. We listened to songs sung in marches and read the nonviolence pacts that participants signed when going to sit-ins. We all cried a little when we passed the balcony. Molly sighed as we left, "I just don't understand why people acted like that to other people."

I'm glad I took them, but part of me still thinks I contributed to innocence lost by doing so. Maybe they're too young. But maybe, just maybe, if they see or hear racism, however subtle, they will speak up--because they've seen where we came from and can see how far we've come. And perhaps they can do their part to ensure we keep going forward.