At the tender age of 9 years old, Dan Gill learned a lesson he will never forget. This middle school teacher spent more than 50 years in the classroom, using an empty chair to teach his students the same lesson. 

The chair is not one used for punishment or separation. Gill doesn’t use it to humiliate anyone or enforce strict policies, or even observe the class. Instead, he’s hoped the chair would serve as a reminder.

 
“Each year I teach lessons around Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday about the Civil Rights movement,” the teacher from Montclair, New Jersey told TODAY. “I wanted to connect the students in a personal way to what that meant.”

When Dan Gill was nine years old, he and his best friend Archie went to a birthday party in Gill’s New York City apartment building. Gill was white, while Archie was black.