It was the summer of 1963. I was a Boy Scout at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. The Scouts had a thing where you would gather in a circle and talk to Scouts from all over the country. I joined a circle at dusk one night, and the talk turned to Civil Rights. I was naïve and clueless, as I have often been, and one of the Scouts said, “They should just be patient. They should just wait a bit.” There was a moment of silence, and I said, “They’ve been waiting for a hundred years.”

This time, the silence lasted more than a moment. The Scout next to me said, “Hey, come with me,” tugging at my sleeve. And as we walked away, he said, “You were about to get beat up.” And he explained that the Scouts I’d been talking with were from the South. And I said, “But you’re from the South,” and he said, “I’m Jewish; we’ve been discriminated against for two thousand years.”

We talked for an hour. I learned a lot that night.