Celebrating Civil Rights

Traveling and training for KIT does provide some wonderful benefits. Meeting people from all over the country who care about providing quality services for all children and are eager to learn new techniques, getting to talk about the positive and powerful subject of inclusion every day and the chance to visit other parts of our beautiful nation. This past week I was in Memphis, Tennessee to meet with the Headquarters staff for the US Navy Child & Youth Programs. KIT is partnering with the US Navy CYPs to ensure that staff who work with children on Navy bases WORLDWIDE have training on inclusion. Wow- we are so impressed with the US Navy Child & Youth Programs and the commitment they have to inclusion.

So, while in Memphis I had a few free hours. This allowed me to visit a museum devoted to one of the subjects I am most passionate about (I know you are thinking Graceland right now). No, my passion is not Elvis Presley. I spent a morning visiting the National Civil Rights Museum and it was a moving and powerful experience. The museum is located in the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The motel has been gutted and turned into a museum, but the facade remains and there is a wreath placed on the balcony outside room 306 in King's honor. Across the street from the motel is the second part of the museum, which is located in the boarding house where the assassin (James Earl Ray) shot from. You can stand in the location of the bathroom where the assassin stood and look out the very same window to the motel. Learn more about the museum here.


The displays in the museum are outstanding and detail every element of the civil rights movement leading up to King's assassination. It was incredibly moving. In a ten-minute film that runs in the museum's theatre I heard that "movements don't start as movements, movements start with individuals" and I could not help but think about the movement of inclusion. It is true. It starts with individuals. KIT's work is to train and speak to as many people working in out-of-school time programs as we can, and invite them to join our movement so that all children can experience the life-enhancing benefits of participating in their own community, doing typical childhood activities.

I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do this important work, and that I get to share it with so many others around the United States (and now the world- thank you US Navy!).