MLK Lesson from the Titanic

Our family spent the weekend in Nashville Tennessee! I am not quite sure that Nashville knew what hit it! We took pictures with all the statues on “Honky Tonk Row” and our nighttime carriage ride through town was just lovely!

On the way back, we stopped in Pigeon Forge and visited the Titanic Museum. It was a decent attraction—not to terribly expensive. We learned lots of facts about the Titanic and the people that were aboard the ship. The little voice monitors they give you are not worth the extra money but all in all a good family excursion.

When you enter the exhibit, you are given a boarding ticket with a person’s name on it that was aboard the ship. There are several artifacts about the passengers and you are supposed to find your passenger and then go to the final room of the tour to find out the fate of your passenger.

I was given the name, Juliette Laroche. Juliette was married to Joseph Philippe Laroche, the only black man aboard the Titanic. Juliette, Joseph and their two daughters were second class passengers on the Titanic. Although they could afford first class tickets, they were not allowed to travel first class due to Joseph’s skin color.

Joseph was a Haitian Aristocrat who studied engineering in France. Although he was very educated and came from a wealthy family, Joseph found it very hard to find work in France due to his skin color. Upon learning that his wife, Juliette was pregnant with their third child, he decided to move their family back to Haiti, where his family was prospering.


(Image source: http://www.titanic1.org/people/louise-laroche.asp)

The Laroche family story was very intriguing to me. I never even thought about a black person being on the Titanic. Their story certainly was NOT part of the Hollywood movie. As a thirty-eight year old African American woman, it is hard to imagine being able to afford first class yet only being able to purchase second class due to my skin color. It was a very chilling feeling to ponder especially as I had to explain it to my children who couldn’t understand what skin color had to do with it since they had the money to purchase first class.

As I walked through the exhibit, I couldn’t stop thinking about the second class thing wrapped up in the tragedy of the ship. The Laroche family accepted their undeserved second class passenger status in the shadows of their dreams of a better life. As with many families that boarded the Titanic, those dreams never came to pass. Juliette and her two daughters survived but Joseph did not. She did go on to deliver a healthy baby boy but spent a lifetime never quite getting over losing the love of her life and their dreams of a new life together.

I cried when I read her story and those of many of the other people on the ship who were separated from family members. I could not imagine bearing racism, being pregnant, facing possible death and then having to leave my husband behind. How did she pick up and keep moving?

My brief encounter with the Laroche family reminded me of why our nation celebrates MLK Jr. Day.

Here is one Martin Luther King Jr. quote that I love:
“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change”

WOW.

Ephesians 5:14
…Wake up o sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.