I took my kids to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. They asked all the right questions.

It’s African American family vacation time. Just a few years ago, my kids and I began an annual tradition of going to visit family in Alabama and Georgia. This yr, I added an academic element to the trip. In the middle of our week in the South, we drove three hours from my parents’ house in northern Alabama to Memphis to visit National Civil Rights Museum (NCRM) at the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

In January 2019, I visited the Lorraine Motel for the first time. I had never been to Memphis before and there was no way I might be in Memphis and never visit the museum to see the place where Dr. King was killed. This is by far the most emotional museum experience I have ever had. I was an emotional wreck by the time I finished the tour and had to loosen up on a bench outside the hotel. I was so offended and so hurt, which was surprising because there was nothing about the hotel that I didn’t already know or was not aware of. Yet on this trip, preparing to see his last hotel room and the place where “they” killed Dr. King made me so restless that the emotions spilled out.

I was curious to see how I would feel about this second museum visit and the way my children would react to it. Three of my 4 children are museum-going age; their schools organize field trips to various museums in Washington, D.C. My children have been to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, but I think the last time they were there they were too young to really understand and process what happened there. My daughter is older (15), so she has a distinct perspective from the history courses she has taken, but my younger boys are at the point where they’re taking black history programs and learning that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is dead. The thing is, my children have some understanding of history, but there may be nothing like being bombarded with it.

Lifestyle

I can say that my second time at NCRM was less emotional—probably because I knew what to expect—but additionally because I tried to see the exhibits through my children’s eyes. It wasn’t long before considered one of my children began asking the questions that make American history sound so silly.

We went right into a room where there was a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood, and my son asked me what it was. In a room filled with people, I explained very loudly that there was a bunch of racist white individuals who hated him and didn’t think he should have the opportunity to play along with his schoolmates or the football team, and in some cases killed black people for doing nothing greater than existing. And then the questions of “why” began to come up. One of my children began reading every thing he saw on the wall. He wanted to understand the way it made sense and kept asking me, “Dad, why would someone do that?”

A girl got here up to me and said, “Kids definitely ask the right questions, right?”

Yes, they do. At every display, from the explanation of the Montgomery bus boycott to the Freedom Riders’ bombed bus exhibit, my kids tried to understand why anyone would allow this to occur and why anyone would want to stop kids from playing together. There was a specific exhibit that talked about schools with letters from parents who didn’t want their kids to go to school with black kids, and that basically interested and confused considered one of my kids.

That’s when I began to worry, because while they could not fully understand the extent of American racism in the 1900s, they’re aware of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. One day, considered one of my children, an 8-year-old, burst into tears in our house because Dr. King had been killed. He was particularly keen to see the place where Dr. King had been killed. That part upset me because I knew how I felt as an adult, but as a baby whose emotions were already shattered, I was apprehensive about how he would take it.

He looked around the stage, hugged me, and stared out at the balcony. He told me he wanted to see the place where the shooter was, however it was closed for renovation. My kids asked all the questions I wanted them to ask, they usually all began with “Why?” and truthfully, I did not have a good answer to any of their questions. I’ve had questions like that myself over the years. But I was happy with them for recognizing and expressing their concerns, asking about history, and appreciating it. My kids understand that, and I’m comfortable and happy with that.

When we left, they asked us to come back, and once they’re older, we’ll come back. For now, I can share with them a component of American history which means a lot to me, and that is what family vacations are all about.

The kids might be high-quality.