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Parents find grassroots power.

An important date awaits in April, and it’s coming sooner than April 15.The Census Bureau has designated April 1 as "National Census Day," the date for mailing census forms to bureau offices. Households that don’t get their forms sent off by then will get a visit from a census taker.

Rose Mary Gilliam just wants to speak her peace and find enlightenment. The 18-year-old New Orleans resident has been a volunteer in the public schools. She’s trained in non-violent protest. She talks with youngsters about making positive life choices. And this week, she’s joining a group of her peers in a reverse “freedom ride” to Washington, D.C., to join a national conversation and to protest inequities in education.

Through a grant from Teaching American History, I was part of a group of teachers who spent months reading, listening and watching films and videos about the civil rights movement before we took a trip to the South. But still it was history—far away, untouchable and remote. That was until the first day in Sumner, Miss.

Every year around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the news media start quoting his “I Have A Dream” speech. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a great speech – certainly one of the best ever given in the cause of civil rights.