“I don’t know whether to call you Fred or Mister Rogers,” I said.
“Oh, that’s up to you!” drawled the warm, familiar voice from an office in Pittsburgh.
“How do most adults approach you?”
“Well, many of them have grown up with the Neighborhood and they invariably call me ‘Mister Rogers.’” He paused, then continued with a dash of excitement. “But you know something I’ve discovered? Friends of ours went to Sweden and they brought back—in fact I’ll reach and hold it while I’m telling you—they brought back this thing made out of soldered nails. And it says, ‘F-R-E-D.’ I asked, ‘Where did you find my name?’ They said, ‘It was with all of these words up on a wall. Fred is the word for peace in Sweden.’ Now I have a whole new appreciation for that four-letter word!”
I knew Mister Rogers spoke often about peace so I asked what we could do to bring peace to the world.
He thought a bit, then said, “It can come only through long and concentrated measures of justice.
“You probably have read To Kill a Mockingbird. When I think of Atticus Finch, who lost all his friends by taking on that case of the wrongly convicted black man, and when I see him being defeated in that courtroom, and walking out, and then his children, with all of the black community, get to their feet to honor him, I feel that that is truly living a life of peace. It certainly speaks to justice in my estimation.”
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