In Honor of MLK Day
One poem and one story
Two Days in April
April 4, 1968
At 6:01 p.m.
Martin Luther King Jr.
was shot by a white
supremacist named
James Earl Ray
while standing
on the balcony
of the Lorraine Motel
in Memphis, Tennessee.
At 7:05 p.m.
he was pronounced
dead—killed,
according to
an expert panel
of forensic pathologists,
by a single “soft-point,
metal-jacketed bullet
fired from a distance
by a high-velocity rifle.”
The bullet, a .30-06,
entered his right cheek
and traveled
in a downward motion,
shattering his jaw,
tearing through
“numerous vital arteries”
and fracturing his spine
in several places.
He was 39 years old.
April 9, 1968
After seeing her father
so still in the casket, his youngest daughter
Bernice, pigtails in white-
lace bows, fidgeted
before laying her head
on her mother’s lap
and listening.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
The Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2018
My Grandfather and the ‘Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes’ Lesson
After MLK’s assassination he stood behind a fearless educator, Jane Elliott, who gave the world a lesson in racial prejudice.
By Michael Judge
I’d always known that my grandfather Dinsmore Brandmill—a World War II veteran, history teacher and K-12 principal—had devoted his life to educating Iowa’s children. But it wasn’t until recently, as the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. approached, that I understood the true breadth of his legacy.
My mother was 8 when her father shipped out for Okinawa and one of the final and bloodiest battles of the Pacific War. More than 12,500 American soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed there in 12 weeks; another 36,000 were wounded. Japanese deaths, including civilians, are estimated near 200,000.
The Japanese call the battle tetsu no ame—“rain of steel”—and for good reason. Japanese forces, including kamikazes, sank 36 American ships and damaged 368 more. When the Imperial Army found its ranks depleted, it turned Okinawan villagers—nearly all against their will, some as young as 13—into cannon fodder and suicide bombers. Told they’d be brutalized by the conquering forces, mothers jumped from cliffs with their infants.
Having seen racism and xenophobia in many forms—from the plight of African-Americans under Jim Crow, to the murderous anti-Semitism that sparked the Holocaust, to Japan’s “superior race” justifications for invading and slaughtering its neighbors—my grandfather understood the dangers of scapegoating whole populations and the importance of reiterating, even when we fall short, that we are all equal in God’s eyes.
After Okinawa, my grandfather—who died in 1988 at 85, his family by his side—was never the same. Though still a consummate gentleman and committed educator, he was more removed from his surroundings, more stoic about the world and what he could and could not change in it. My mother remembers long rides down country roads, holding his hand in silence.
Neither of them could have known that a half-century later my mother’s youngest son—me—would live and work in Tokyo as a journalist, fall in love, marry and be blessed with a son who is half Japanese. My mother and older brother attended the wedding celebration in Japan in 1997, and I like to think my grandfather would have, too, if he’d been alive.
Having seen racism and xenophobia in many forms—from the plight of African-Americans under Jim Crow, to the murderous anti-Semitism that sparked the Holocaust, to Japan’s “superior race” justifications for invading and slaughtering its neighbors—my grandfather understood the dangers of scapegoating whole populations and the importance of reiterating, even when we fall short, that we are all equal in God’s eyes.
How do I know that? Because 50 years ago this week, the day after Dr. King was murdered by a white supremacist in Memphis, Tenn., a teacher at my grandfather’s school in Riceville, Iowa, resolved to teach her all-white, all-Christian third-grade students a lesson about bigotry—by having them actually experience it. Her name was Jane Elliott. The lesson came to be known as “Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes.”
Ms. Elliott divided her class by eye color. She told the children with brown eyes they were naturally superior while giving them high praise and special privileges. She told the blue-eyed children they were naturally inferior, unruly and untrustworthy, while treating them like second-class citizens. The next day, the roles were reversed.
What Ms. Elliott witnessed shocked her. “I watched what had been marvelous, cooperative, wonderful, thoughtful children turn into nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders, in the space of 15 minutes,” she later explained. Racism, in other words, was something that people learned.
After two agonizing days, Ms. Elliott explained to her students that the exercise was over, and that what both groups had experienced was “a filthy, nasty word called discrimination,” which means “treating people a certain way because they are different.” When she asked the children if that was fair, they shouted in unison: “No!” They had learned, however briefly, what it felt like to be the victims of prejudice.
When news of the eye-color exercise spread, many in the community protested. Some had legitimate concerns: that this type of social experiment had no place in public schools or could scar the children emotionally. Other reactions were ugly. Ms. Elliott received death threats from around the country, and she and her family were called names like “n— lover.”
As the school’s principal, my grandfather faced more than a few irate parents and school-board members calling for Ms. Elliott’s resignation. But he stood by his teacher, telling her to continue with her lesson—that he, in effect, had her back. A few years later, in a book about the exercise, she inscribed the following: “For Mr. Brandmill, who was the kind of principal all teachers dream of—and a few lucky ones find.”
The Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes exercise has since been taught countless times to children and adults around the world. In 1985 it was the subject of a PBS “Frontline” episode titled “A Class Divided.” If you watch the documentary closely, you’ll briefly see my grandfather in the first few minutes. He’s the elderly gentlemen in the fedora and winter coat, walking alongside the yellow school buses and throngs of happy children.
Ms. Elliott, now in her 80s, recently sent my mother a letter praising my grandfather for his courage during a dark time in American history. “Without Mr. Brandmill’s leadership,” she wrote, “the Blue Eyes-Brown Eyes exercise would probably never have happened even once, and it certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to be repeated. . . . He was the best Principal I’ve ever had, and one of the few men I’ve known whose integrity was without question. Even now, I consider him a hero, a friend, and a Blessing.”
Dinsmore Brandmill, the son of an orphaned German émigré, was born on June 7, 1903, in a small Iowa town named for his mother, Elma. Throughout her life Elma kept a lock of her son’s hair, which she allowed to grow to his shoulders when he was a boy, in a book near her bed. His eyes, like my son’s, were brown.
Both really strong.
Thank you.
Profound poem, powerful story. Thank you for sharing.