She said there were days she didn't allow her children to go to school because she was afraid for their lives. We tried to protect them from the hurt and pain that we went through. We know how deep that pain can be. Her thoughts of what this country went through in the 1960s aren't as frequent as they used to be. Time is washing away the intensity.
People become afraid to change.
The '60s were the exception. As a kid, Rick Burke dreamed of being a soldier, a Marine. He always knew he would be. He always knew he would fight in a war. That's exactly what the Topeka West High School dropout did from 1966 to 1968 when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.