"Every parent at some time faces the problem of explaining the facts of life to his child. Just as inevitably, for the Negro parent, the moment comes when he must explain to his offspring the facts of segregation. My mother took me on her lap and began by telling me about slavery and how it had ended with the Civil War. She tried to explain the divided system of the South - the segregated schools, restaurants, theaters, housing; the white and colored signs on drinking fountains, waiting room, lavatories - as a social condition rather than a natural order. Then she said the words that almost every Negro hears before he can yet understand the injustice that makes them necessary:"You are as good as anyone."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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