"Oil and Water" --- a play by Robert Chafe

This afternoon an audience was mezmerized by Halifax Neptune's Theatre production of "Oil and Water."  A true tale is spun of a black man, Lanier Phillips, who was aboard the US Truxtun when it was shipwrecked off Newfoundland in 1942.  Fearing that it was Iceland the two blackmen on the boat were ordered below deck as the ship was cast onto the craggy rocks --- blackmen were prohibited in Iceland.  Lanier did not go below, wishing to take a chance above deck rather than in the belly of the ship.  He awoke to two women cleaning the oil off of him, confused he struggled, not knowing if they were friend or foe --- definitely fearing foe.
The one women kept rubbing and rubbing and rubbing.  "Maam, the colour doesn't come off."  The men who had washed ashore were covered in oil from the ship that was wrecked.  The black cleaned off the other men with a lot of washing and rubbing.
The little town of St. Lawrence had never seen anyone that had dark skin.

The women, when realizing there was not oil, only skin.... she looked...she touched, "It is beautiful!"

The climax of the play is that racism is taught.  Those in St. Lawrenece town knew nothing of the world Lanier was only too familiar with. Interspersed were vinettes of 1974 when Boston was integrating blacks and whites in the public school system --- Lanier's daughter was part of the first school.  She was angry, scared, and demonized all white people.  Lanier finally showed her a photo from his two days in Newfoundland --- two days of being treated as everyone else, a somebody --- everyone in the photo, black and white, were smiling.  He carried the photo in his breast pocket to remind himself that there was hope ---- that someone saw him as beautiful.
Those words carried with Lanier through his life encouraged him to be an advocate in race relations, lecturing, and working for human rights across the US.

I wonder, what phrases or actions do we give that become words of hope in others, words or pictures that might last decades.  I only  pray that I am given wisdom to share the nuggets of hope that someone so desperately needs, so that they may become passionate advocates ---- for the healing of the world.