Two months before this date I was in China. I went with a group of lawyers on an educational tour and we met with various groups involved in the legal profession.
One was a group of law students at Beijing University who were very excited about this new movement that was brewing to bring Democracy to China. We talked about law in the two countries and they were astonished to hear that in America citizens had the right to sue the government.
As the meeting grew to a close, a shy, skinny male student approached me and asked if I would make an exchange with him in friendship. He pointed to my Chicago Bulls baseball cap and said he knew about Michael Jordan. In exchange he would give me this pin. It was red with a silver portrait of Mao and the Great Hall of the People. I agreed and we made the exchange and I wished him luck.
When we got back to the bus, I showed our guide the pin. She was a Communist Party regular and she was outraged. She told me that was his party pin and he never should have given it to me and that he was a traitor. She wanted me to giver her the pin and she wanted me to identify who had given it to me. I did neither and she seethed for the rest of the day.
On June 4, back in Chicago, I watched the events unfold in Tienamen square where we had vistied just two months earlier. I thought about that law student and wondered if he was there. Knowing the way he felt as we discussed Democracy I assumed he had to be there and I searched the crowd for a Chicago Bulls cap. I never saw it.
When the event turned violent, I watched in horror as students fell to gunshots. I prayed that he wasn't among the dead, wounded or jailed after that event, but I never found out. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach when I think about that day and can only hope that somehow he survived and even propsered in his law career.