General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 1968 (Your Help, Please!) [View all]suffragette
(12,232 posts)Some of this might stretch into 1969.
1) I was a crosswalk guard for awhile in elementary school. The farthest of our crosswalks was located next to a cemetery, and we held our crosswalk flag upright whenever a cemetary procession of cars came by. I remember some of them had US flags (attached to motorcycle escort or cars) and we were told they were Vietnam veterans. This happened often.
2) I lived in the projects and our school was poor and subject to the whims of tax levys. However, due to Johnson's Great Society (and maybe a bit of Kennedy's "Ask not..." we had amazing teachers who were highly motivated to be there to help educate us to overcome this hard start. One, for example, thought our Social Studies/History texts were inadequate. Back then, it was rare for a woman or person of color to be included. So she made photo copies at the University of Washington (UW) and taught us about a much wider range of people and movements: MLK, Harriet Tubman, Chief Sealth, George Washington Carver and on and on. She taught us about the civil rights movement and about the protests that were occurring in 1968 that were happening in the UW area where she lived. And she told us the parts that were'nt on the news, like the clouds of tear gas on the streets there that affected everyone in the neighborhood. I have too many instances of reaching out in marvelous ways from the teachers at that school to recount, for which I am forever grateful.