Indianapolis

Our morning show in Indianapolis went well, despite starting at a frigid 8:50 AM. The students, though some were still rubbing sleep from their eyes, were attentive. The questions, we've begun to notice, tend to circle around the death of Dr. King, especially as soon as the word "conspiracy" crops up in our responses. (Officially, a man named James Earl Ray was convicted of the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr., but apparently some of the evidence is suspect and many believe there is more mystery to the murder than history records. Maybe so.) The problem with the students asking about the assassination and conspiracy theories is that it feeds on a kind of morbid fascination that schools in general do not encourage. While we want to encourage them to research to find the truth of things, we do not want them also to miss the point of the story in the process.

(On a side note, there is a historiological argument for ignoring assassins--not out of respect for the assassin, but rather as a kind of disrespect, a disregarding of their fame. Many assassins target victims not only for social/political gain, but also to make a name for themselves. By allowing their names to be forgotten in the wake of the victim's legacy, the argument goes, history can vindicate the victim and scrap the villain.)

So, my solution is fairly simple. When the question is of the "What are the conspiracy theories" variety, we nip it in the bud. It's not that we do not want to answer the question, but rather that we want to divert their attention to what is most important. So we define the word conspiracy, which is essentially any group of people who meet in secret for a shared purpose. In other words, planning a surprise party is just as much a conspiracy as is planning an attack. Once the kids understand this, they are more apt to realize how apocryphal a lot of conspiracy theories are. Certainly, there was a conspiracy to kill Dr. King--the assassin surely did not act without encouragement, at the very least--but as to who, what, and where questions, well, there are simply no easy answers at the moment.

--

After the Indianapolis show, we drove back two hours to Cincinnati, where we lunched shortly at a Donato's before doing our second show. The Children's Theatre had the performance videotaped for archival purposes, and despite a slight false start (the sound system froze briefly for the opening number, so Marva sang a capella), the show was another success.