Discrimination message moving, relatable

When I was a freshman in 1958 at what is now University of Northern Iowa, my humanities teacher said to go to the convocations. About 600 students attended.

The short speaker stood on a box behind the lectern to deliver his message. He delivered a moving message about discrimination and non-violence.

I could relate to that because when I was a freshman in high school, I turned in the school bully for slicing the new stage curtain that the band had worked so hard to buy.

He was suspended from school and made to make restitution but then he came back.

It was war for the next two years. He and his six buddies couldn't walk past me without some sort of name calling or heckling. I couldn't imagine not being able to get away from this kind of nonsense because of skin color.

After the speech, the speaker said he would be at the bookstore to sign his book. I went. Only a few others were there. The speaker and I talked for about 20 minutes and he, a Ph.D., was asking me questions! He asked me why the students did not respond to his message?

I suggested that there was a difference between understanding discrimination intellectually and emotionally. The students had probably never felt discriminated against.

He said, “That was probably it”. He signed his book, “Stride Toward Freedom”, with “Best Wishes, Martin L King Jr.”

I left a member of the civil rights movement.

Harold Hensel

Cedar Rapids