The racial incidents in Regional School Unit 21, described in recent stories in the Portland Press Herald, have been deeply disturbing. While I don’t believe that anyone except a few of the board members and the lawyers will eventually learn all the facts, it is important that these terrible incidents be discussed openly.

I don’t believe that children are born with malice in their hearts, nor can they act with evil intent. How two children could confront a woman of color, in a school setting, and menace her with a symbol of the darkest part of our history is something that is unfathomable.

Holding hands and asking forgiveness is not a solution, however well-intentioned it may be. The entire school district needs to study our past. The students need to learn of the firehoses and dogs in Mississippi and Alabama; the vicious beatings and lynchings that took place in our country up until the civil rights era; the slayings of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers; the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; the deaths of those beautiful children in a church in Alabama; the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner in Mississippi in 1964.

Further, they need to read about Jim Crow, they need to read “The New Jim Crow” and they need to learn about racial incidents and terrible events taking place even now in our cities and towns.

As I listened to some of those in attendance at the board meeting Feb. 25, I was impressed by the students who spoke. They were obviously moved by the events that took place in their school, and they showed a lot of class by addressing the issue.

We need these young people now more than ever.

Bevan Davies

Kennebunk