the man with the silver crown

As the rain drenches our windshield while we wait, and the gas pump dial spins at breakneck speed, my son asks me from his car seat where we are. I say we're tanking up on MLK Boulevard, and since we're on the topic, I decide to delve in. Now that he's four, it's a good time to start talking about Dr. King: "Do you know who Martin Luther King Jr. was?"

I wonder how well Jonah will grasp the ideas behind the man's life and legacy. I try to break the concepts down to his level without sounding like a ridiculous, washed-out elementary school textbook that glosses over what really happened and mattered during Dr. King's life and still matters today.

As I navigate the traffic on MLK, which is what we call the street here, I use simple words to try to convey the essence of the civil rights movement and Dr. King's anti-war activism. It's much more of a challenge than I had anticipated to illuminate the abstract concepts at play here to a four-year-old literal thinker: in/justice, in/equity, oppression, racism, violence, law, rights, imperialism, resistance, courage, community organizing... So I start with talking about the man as someone special and brave who was a leader and who worked with people to challenge unfair things and to help people live better. Next I plan to get more detailed and to engage my son in greater depth.

Just at a point when I think Jonah is following along, he asks, "Did he wear a crown? A silver crown?" Well, he wasn't a king though that was his name, I answer.

Judging from our interaction, it's clear that the idea of challenging oppression is a little too abstract for my son, so I talk about King's anti-war activism. Fighting, getting hurt, shooting, enemies... Jonah grasps those concepts pretty well. So I discuss why Dr. King was opposed to war and we linger on that topic for a while. Jonah is curious about why anyone would wage war. I am pleased, thinking, glad you asked. At freeway speed, I am so engrossed in the conversation that I miss our turn, forcing us to loop around the whole city.

Jonah asks me if MLK is dead. I say that he is. Jonah asks how Dr. King died. I explain that he was shot, and in simple words why this most likely happened, because my son wants to know.

Finally, I tell Jonah he was named after Martin Luther King Jr., his middle name being Rey, king in Spanish. I tell him why we, his white, not overly politically active parents decided to name our son after Rev. King. I say, in simpler words, that it's because we wanted to honor a person whose work moves us deeply; that we wanted to send a ray of his courage, dedication and vision forward, into the future with the young generation; that we wanted our son to do important work for a more just world, as we--and dare I say more intensely than we--strive to do in our small, humble ways.

So, fittingly, I follow up with what he thinks he will do in the world when he is older, to which, after all this talk about ideals and societal change in pre-schooler jargon, he replies: "I'm going to drive a police... (While he pauses... I think, oh no, not the police, clenching my teeth, hoping he doesn't finish his sentence with the words "patty wagon" or some such wackiness that would make me keel over while driving sixty miles an hour)... tow truck."

A police tow truck. Well, there you have it, my friends. To be continued.