I Wanna Live in His Neighborhood

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He was an author, producer, host, Presbyterian minister, and father of two sons. Can you tell me who he was? Fred Mcfeely Rogers is who I am talking about. He was born March 20, 1928, and died of stomach cancer on February 27, 2003. He was the creator and host of Mister Roger's Neighborhood from 1968 to 2001. That's 33 years of the man spouting about how rare and unique each one of us is, how important it is to be kind to one another, how strange forgiveness can be, the real strength comes from helping others, that there are times when explanations just don't seem to help and to be kind to and help others. With those ideas for a good and positive life, you would think that someone would have fought to get him off the air. I am kidding of course but, with some of the idiots we have in this world I am really surprised someone didn't find a real problem with this wonderful human being. Well, sure enough, there was. In doing my research about Mr. Rogers I found that the Ku Klux Klan actually was impersonating him in order to spread their racist messages. In 1990 the Missouri Knights of the Ku Klux Klan distributed to children a phone number that had a recorded message with a member impersonating Mr. Roger's voice. There were several different messages all with racist intent. Community groups and leaders in Missouri came together to find out who was doing this. They found that this same number had been used by the Ku Klux Klan in that area to promote their racist agenda. Mr. Rogers discovered this and filed a lawsuit. A temporary restraining order was ordered by a federal judge. The three men that had been found to be the culprits finally agreed to stop playing the messages. In 2019 a film came out entitled "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood". It starred Tom Hanks and told the story of the beloved children's host who had taught compassion and kindness for so many years.