Just as a reminder, there will be no school on Monday, Jan. 21st, because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
I suppose you knew that, but I highly doubt that most of you planned to recall or celebrate the life of him for which the day is observed.
Like the rest of you, I knew who the guy was and the movement he lead, but beyond the most highly repeated phrases from his speech, I was personally unfamiliar with his impact. As a lover of history, I knew what he did historically, but I didn’t feel it inside. All I knew was that U2, Nancy Griffith and James Taylor had all written some great songs about him, so I figured there was more to this than what I understood.
Does this ring true with any of the rest of you?
If it does, I’m sure it is with most of those of my same generation. I have felt the disservice of being born in an apathetic and unmoved era. For a while there was nothing to get moved about. We were a bunch of rebels without a cause.
When I first decided on this topic, I wanted to say it with a bang. I wanted to be brash and brutal, to harp on the negative aspects of our generation and our world today. I wanted the readers to hear my cynicism loud and clear.
But as I sat reading King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, I saw the irony in my own desire for a spiteful analysis of our current state rather than a peaceful demonstration.
I find it rather synchronous that we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day so close to the New Year. It has the potential to make us question ourselves, as individuals and as a country, if we are better this year than we were last year in our treatment of others. Will we be better in the year to come?
In the last few months of 2001 we saw the country become its best and its worst in terms of Dr. King’s message of the ideal America. In the wake of Sept. 11, the country was unified more than ever in my lifetime. It was the first moment I ever felt any sense of cohesiveness in my country, and also the first time I felt part of an event or era equal to that of my parents’.
Yet at the same time the country was full of hate and a desire for vengeance both against the enemy abroad and any likely enemy who fit the stereotype at home.
In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.
Did we backtrack a little? I’m not sure, for King also emphasized the moral right and responsibility to disobey this notion in the face of injustice and social evil.
Americans are walking a fine line between equal protection and self-preservation. There were things we did right and things we did wrong in relation to Sept. 11, but one thing is for sure, Dr. King’s message was meant to be an eternal one:
1963 is not an end, but a beginning.
No kidding. And we are nowhere near the end in January 2002.
But I think the crucial point to it all is that Rev. King was not a preacher of hell, fire and damnation. What was his message?
Hope.
The man had expectations (big ones), and he expected them to be filled by man, by country and by God.
?knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
Have his expectations been filled? In many respects I believe they have. There are national programs such as Affirmative Action. There are powerful organizations such as the NAACP. There is a sense of political correctness.
Generationally speaking there are improvements in the American psyche concerning equality as well. I truly believe that this generation is more open-minded to a sense of equality for all Americans than were our predecessors. Race still plays a part in our lives, but on the whole, it is no longer the dividing line.
When I was a child, my grandfather was livid about the ethnicity represented on “Sesame Street.” He didn’t like the fact that his grandchildren were being exposed to the likes of Hispanic or African American characters. He wanted his grandchildren to know only the white world that he had helped to create. My mother, on the other hand, thought it was a great and important change to have the various races portrayed on television for her children learn from.
And I didn’t notice there was a difference in races at all.
I don’t know if this was due to the change in the world outlook or due to my childlike view of the world, but either way, the point is clear. We have come a long way since 1963, baby.
Dr. King, there has been a change since 1963?slight though it may be. And our generation finally has a turn at feeling your passion? and all of the pain that comes with it.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Amen, Dr. King. Amen.
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