June 11, 1963

It was June and Fifth Grade was coming to a close. Time to think of summer. Time not to think of serious things for a while. Mrs. Nolte had other ideas. She wanted us to think real hard about what we wanted to do when we grew up. She had us write it down. What did any eleven year old really know about what they wanted to do when they got older? There were so many choices, so how could you pick something?
I picked what I knew, or what I thought I knew. My head was filled with patriotism and soldiers and playing army, so I picked what I knew. I would go to West Point and when I was finished there I would either stay in the army and protect my country, or become a historian and explore all of battlefields and the ruins of historical places in other lands. I was sure of my convictions.

On June 11, 1963, other people’s convictions were being tested. We watched them on the evening news.
In that far-off little country called Vietnam, a place none of us understood, a war was going on between the Communists in the north, and the government we protected in the south. What we didn’t know was that there was another war within that war, a lot like what was going on in our country. It was a war of religious prejudice. The rulers of South Vietnam were mostly Catholics, and they were treating the Buddhists the same way black Americans were being treated here. It was too complicated for an eleven year old goofball like me to truly understand. I didn’t really understand the prejudice in our own country, or how it affected people’s lives, even though I was watching all of the turmoil as it happened on the TV in my living room.
One thing that day caught my attention like no other. That night on the news was the sight of a man sitting in the street in Vietnam. The man was a Buddhist monk, and he was protesting against the treatment of Buddhists by his government. Just like the black people I’d seen in Alabama, except this man’s protest was dramatically different.
This monk had himself doused with gasoline and then he lit a match an deliberately set himself on fire.
He burned himself to death for all the world to see, and the world watched in horror, we all saw it on TV.
The monk died silently, burning to death without screaming or moving.
He had the strength of his convictions.

That same day in Alabama, two black Americans wanted to go to college. James Hood and Vivian Monroe were going to enroll in the University of Alabama. The governor of Alabama, George Wallace, was totally against racial integration. He had made a speech denouncing integration at the beginning of the year, and now he stood in the doorway of the school, trying to prevent two of his fellow citizens from entering. He would not have moved at all if it weren’t for the U.S. Marshals and the Deputy United States Attorney General and the Alabama National Guard to convince him.
George Wallace moved aside, and the University of Alabama would have its first black students. James Hood and Vivian Monroe had the strength of their convictions.
George Wallace backed away from his.
That night President Kennedy gave a speech. It was a speech about equal rights for all Americans. He told us that racial prejudice no longer had a place in the United States. He reminded us all that America was founded on the principle that all people were equal, and that everyone should be treated fairly. President Kennedy would ask the Congress to pass Civil Rights laws that would guarantee everyone in America equal treatment. President Kennedy’s views were not popular with a lot of white Americans, but he had been elected as the choice of hope and a brighter future, and now he was standing by his belief in a better America for everybody.
It was an important day, that June 11 in 1963.
What did I make of it?
I was certainly shocked at watching a man burn himself to death, but I didn’t understand it at all. I could never understand why white people down south were so against black people sitting in school with them, and why they were willing to go to such great lengths to prevent it. Most likely I watched President Kennedy’s speech, and even though I heard it I probably didn’t listen. A lot of Americans weren’t listening, especially white ones.
I was probably mad that one of my favorite TV shows, Combat, wasn’t on because the President was giving another boring speech, and jeez, when is it going to be over, anyway? What do you want from an eleven year old? I can barely change my sister’s diaper, you know?