Reflecting on CHILDREN and CIVIC ACTION in OCTOBER
October is speeding by! We are already ¾ into the month before the fun of Halloween next week! With a lot going on it’s easy to forget that it’s also a month to pause and reflect as the seasons change.
I like to reflect on the many journeys that THE LAST WITCH takes us on. One of the most important ones is seeing how a group of middle school civics students learned to make an impact on the world by researching and arguing for the exoneration of Elizabeth Johnson, Jr. to the Massachusetts legislature. Watching them slowly come to grasp with the enormity of that impact gives me hope that our film will have a similar impact as we elevate their story.
The students’ work underscores THE LAST WITCH as a contemporary story with historical roots. Civic rights and the connection to children have a strong connection to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The world then was more terrifying than any staged Halloween party today. People were accusing each other of signing their souls to the Devil to do with as he wished out of fear that they themselves would be accused. No one was safe.
The most vulnerable were the children, then as now, many of whom found themselves lost without a guardian while their parents were held in damp, cold, vermin and disease infested prisons. The family’s property was in some cases taken by the courts to pay for jail fees and the children were left to fend for themselves. A number of children were accused and imprisoned. The youngest was a baby girl who died while incarcerated with her mother.
I also reflect on author Marilynn Roach who describes in her book, TheSalem Witch Trials, how six of the children who were accused of witchcraft were released on bails of £500 from Salem prison earlier in the month. Today that bail would be worth around $150,000. It was the start of a foster care system so that children could be safe before winter came.
Something to think about.
