The touching reason why this teacher held an empty classroom chair for 50 years
If you had ever had the chance to enter Dan Gill's classroom at Glenfield Middle School in Montclair, New Jersey, you would have immediately noticed the empty chair in the center of the classroom.
There is no reclining chair or chair for an administrator to come and observe the class. The empty chair is a reminder. A reminder of Gill and a reminder of his students.
"Every year I give lessons about the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. about the civil rights movement, "Gill told TODAY Parents. "I wanted to connect the students in a personal way with what that meant to me."
When Gill was nine, he and his best friend Archie went to a birthday party in New York. Gifts in hand, two boys - Gill, white and Archie, colored - rang the bell. The mother of the child who had the birthday saw Archie and said she had no more chairs. Gill, confused, said they could sit on the floor or get more chairs. The woman repeated that she no longer had a chair. Finally, Gill realized that Archie was not welcome because he was colored. The boys both left crying.
This day has remained in his memory for more than 60 years.
"We have to be a class of opportunities. "Archie was denied the opportunity to go to the birthday party because of a prejudice that the woman had," he says today.
Gill is planning to retire and write a book entitled "No More Chairs". It will be dedicated to Archie, who died last year. The two boys lost contact decades ago, but Gill has found Archie's relatives on social media.