"Do you know where your children are?" is a question used as a public service announcement(PSA) for parents on American television especially from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. Accompanied by a time announcement, this phrase is typically used as a direct introduction for the originating station's late-evening newscast, typically at either 10:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. While the phrase itself had appeared in newspapers as early as the 19th century, usage of it in broadcasting started in the early 1960s following the enactment of nightly youth curfews for minors in multiple large cities.”
The date was July 26th. The same date that, “Old writings on the walls of several houses in Hamelin say that on July 26, 1284, a Piper led 130 children out of town and that they were lost in Koppen Hill. Some believe that the Piper was an agent of the Bishop of Olmutz, who in the late 1200's took many Hamelin children to Moravia, where they were resettled.” Thus leading to the Legend of the Pied Piper that has come down to us through the generations.
Karen remembers seeing cartoon versions of that story and having it read to her when she and her sister were young. As she stood before the mirror in her bedroom she was dumbfounded & perplexed. Was she loosing her mind? Hallucinating? She pinched herself hard. Was this a nightmare from which she would surly awake? How could she have “been with child,” as the saying goes, the night before and now in the morning have had a spontaneous abortion? It was impossible. Or was it?
A little over a month before on Juneteenth, June 19th Hallem, The Keeper walked into the offices of The Philadelphia Tribune, the nation’s oldest continuously published Black newspaper and into history.
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