While growing up in small, rural Slater, my elementary teachers often taught about the injustices that blacks suffered throughout American history. We read stories on civil rights issues and the injustices of blacks not being able to drink from the same water fountains or eat at the same restaurants as whites. The first images I saw of scars on the backs of slaves made me cringe, images that have never escaped my mind. The history presented in our textbooks included these pictures that made me curious as to how such a tragedy could have occurred in my country. I remember asking, “Why are blacks being beaten, and what caused this problem?” I learned about the Civil War and slavery, an issue that for a time divided our nation.

I am white and have black friends; we drink water from the same fountains and eat lunch in the same cafeteria. Progress has been made in the last 40 years; however, it is evident to me as a college student more progress needs to be made. What I was not taught during my public school education was that injustice was still going on in the community around me and in the country, for that matter. I was somewhat blind that a few of the people around me, with whom I was friends, were racist in some fashion, mostly by the comments they made or the derogatory names they associated with blacks. Their parents more than likely passed down the prejudice and the inappropriate names. My parents instilled equality within me and that everyone is equal. They taught me that by working hard in this country, I could be anything I desired. As a child I knew what was right, despite being friends with a few racist children, and even a handful of adults, for that matter. It never occurred to me not to like these people; I ignored their name calling and racist jokes.

I realize now this is exactly the problem in our country. When people I knew as a child showed signs of racism, no one challenged their biased behavior or hateful comments, comments that would be passed down to their children causing the problems with race in our country to continue. Today, I understand that my elementary teachers should have stressed that race was still an issue in the community in which I lived. The teachers should have said, “Although our skin color is different, we are all the same and we should correct those who discriminate.”

My thoughts concerning this issue could not have been clearer when recently I attended Liberty’s Martin Luther King Day celebration at William Jewell College. The concurrent theme was one of King’s famous quotations, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” After listening to the speakers of the event, something sparked in my mind that had been there years before while I was still in grade school. Our nation has come a long way since the days of the Civil Rights Movement; however, there still is a long way to go to achieve equality.

At the end of the King celebration in Gano Chapel, I thought back to my grade school days and my education on the Civil War and how divided the country was during that time as we all joined hands — black and white, side by side, as a community undivided and sang “We Shall Overcome.” In my heart I understood that King’s quote was not only important when he said it, but also important today and for the future. After all, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

John P. Gerhard is a junior English major at William Jewell College.