On the evening of April 4 , 1968 , Elliott turned on her television and learned of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 's assassination . She says that she vividly remembers a scene in which a white reporter pointed his microphone toward a local black leader and asked things like " When '' our '' leader John F. Kennedy was killed several years ago , his widow held us together . Who 's going to control '' your '' people ? " She then decided to combine a lesson that she had planned about Native Americans with a lesson that she had planned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for February 's Hero of the Month project . At the moment she was watching the news of King 's death , Elliott says she was ironing a teepee for use in a lesson unit about Native Americans . To tie the two lessons together , she used the Sioux prayer " Oh great spirit , keep me from ever judging a man until I have walked in his moccasins . " She wanted to give her small-town , all-white students the experience of walking in a " colored child 's moccasins for a day "
killed
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Jane Elliott