Notes from a bitch…

Let’s jump right on in, shall we?
The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday has special meaning for me. I remember the battle waged to get a national holiday honoring King and how much it meant to my parents. They were in their 20s during the 1960s and active in the movement. They watched segregation laws crumble and communities rebel in the face of change. They watched cities burn when Dr. King was murdered in 1968. And they passed that history on to their children along with the knowledge that many sacrificed much so that we could have the opportunities we do.
For me the MLK holiday is a day to remember the movement and all the extraordinary ordinary people who made it possible.
I tend to avoid the brunches and services and parades. I prefer to watch episodes of Eyes on the Prize and ponder the power of people…regular people…working to make a positive difference.
It is their normalcy…so easy to forget…that is so extraordinary. Too many of us put activists on pedestals and speak of their actions as if quoting scripture…particularly Dr. King.
But, in doing so, we lose the beauty of their accomplishments and the meaning of our inheritance just when we need to understand it most.
The struggle for social justice is anything but history. Poverty, separate and anything but equal education, laws that protect discrimination instead of people, an unjust war and I could go on and on.
There is much work to be done.
Miles and miles yet to go.
And we can take some encouragement from the words of Dr. King…
If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk–CRAWL.
By all means, keep on moving…