Giving Compass' Take:

• Ann Hodgman at Smithsonian writes on how Mister Rogers was able to speak to children about gun violence before it became the issue it is today.  

• How can parents and teachers talk to their children about gun violence in a world with social media? 

• Learn more about how to take action on gun control. 

"Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” had been on the air nationwide for only four months when Robert Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. But the show’s creator, Fred McFeely Rogers, knew that children would need help processing the assassination—the second in the United States in just two months—so he worked through the night of June 6 on a special episode for parents. The half-hour show was taped the following day and aired on public television that evening, the day before Kennedy’s funeral. Fifty years later, it’s still mesmerizing TV.

The black-and-white scene opens on the perennially fearful Daniel Striped Tiger, a hand puppet worried about how breathing works. Daniel watches as his (human) friend Lady Aberlin shows that after she has let the air out of a balloon, she can blow it up again. As Lady Aberlin begins to reinflate the balloon, Daniel abruptly asks, “What does assassination mean?”

Read the full article about Mister Rogers pioneering speaking to kids about gun violence by Ann Hodgman at Smithsonian