Fred Rogers Shared Water

Only four months after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Fred Rogers brought opera singer François Clemmons onto "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" as Officer Clemmons, one of the first Black recurring figures on kids’ TV. A few months later, in 1969, Rogers sat down with a little wading pool, talked about the heat, and invited Clemmons to cool off with him. Clemmons rolled up his uniform pants and put his feet in the same water as Rogers, and the camera just sat there in the moment to make the point. In a time when public pools still carried the ugly baggage of segregation, they used a quiet, ordinary shot to show what integration actually looks like.

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