Three Girls Who Deserve Recognition 
~ by James Banzer

   When the high school or college graduate dons that cap and gown and sits through the speech extolling the idea of going out on a quest for the future, the theme is likely to include a simple message. Continue a quest for knowledge. Through the ages, young people have heard that common commencement message telling them to keep in touch with the world. Go out in an effort to be your best, they are told.

   Staying in touch is one of our human and civic responsibilities. The world's events, be they positive or negative, should concern us all. Ignoring them may be comfortable bliss, but ignorance will not make things any better.

   There are plenty of people who don't seem to care. The masses go about their daily lives oblivious to anything more complex than the latest weather warning, or the tailgating they might do during their favorite college team's football game.

   Many people don't want to hear about the negative.

   Well friend, the last thing you want to do is to immerse yourself in only the negative. The fact though, is that being oblivious to the bad things around us is not the answer.

   Shutting out the bad more than likely is a combination of laziness, selfishness and apathy. Those who say they don't want to hear the bad are most probably simply opting for the more comfortable way out.

   Ignoring the bad and pretending it didn't happen is never going to make this world a bed of roses.

   There are times when people decide not to ignore the bad. In those rare instances when people decide to act to bring about change for the better, and to right the wrongs of the past, the soul is given a boost.

   Three girls in suburban Chicago exemplify this idea.

   They know in their young hearts that allowing the bad to go ignored is not the answer to making this world a better place.

   Scant recognition has been given so far to Brittany Saltiel, Sarah Siegel and Allison Nichols. Their story is still fairly obscure. Some members of congress noticed though, and the story has been in a few newspapers. The big national splash will surely come.

   The teens from Adlai E. Stephenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois were all 16 last year when they put together a short documentary for a National History Day competition. It was their contribution to a class project.

   Brittany, Sarah and Allison had heard that horrible story about three young civil rights workers from the north who were beaten and shot to death on a lonely rural Mississippi road in 1964. The story of the three men who had been investigating the burning of a black church caught the girl's interest.

   The girls zeroed in on, and even talked with, a man named Ray Killen. Partly as a result of the attention that little ten-minute documentary generated, Killen is now set to go on trial in June for planning those horrible murders.

   No one before has been convicted of state murder charges for those killings. The hard school work of Brittany, Sarah and Allison was followed by a congressional resolution asking that the attorney general in Mississippi reopen the the 1964 case.

   Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner were in Mississippi in an effort to register black people to vote. The hatred that they encountered cost them their lives.

   Whether or not the reputed former member of the Ku Klux Klan will be convicted 41 years following those murders is not as important as is the fact that three girls cared. Perhaps there was an innocence of youth at play here, but these girls have already accomplished more in the course of a high school class than most people do in a lifetime. They should be considered national heroes for caring about the world around them.

   After a long career in broadcast news, James Banzer is now writing on his observations about the world around us. He currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky. You may send him e-mail at jamesbanzer@yahoo.com.

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