First published in 2009
Daughter
1 & I (and this year Daughter 2) have had this conversation. We've
had it almost every year since Daughter 1 has started school. It
starts with this question:
Mom?
Why is Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday?
Daughter
1 (and now Daughter 2) doesn't get that there was a time in this country that
“we”, as a nation, thought of African Americans as inferior human beings.
They don’t understand that at one point, our nation didn’t even consider them
to be human beings. They don't understand that there was a time when they would
not have gotten to go to school with some of their friends just because
their friends look different than we do. They don't understand that there
is hatred - not based on personality or actions - but on looks alone.
They
don’t understand. And for that lack of
understanding, I thank God every single day.
I'd
like to think that The Dad and I are raising them to have open minds and open
hearts to their fellow man.
I'd
like to think that it's all because of mine and The Dad's desire to have all
human beings treated with dignity and respect. ALL human beings.
I'd
like to think that it's because of our own practices within our own lives that
reflect our desire to accept and be accepted as people of value.
However,
I know all of our "oh-so-fine parenting skills" would not be
possible if it had not been for the pathway paved by many of our civil rights
advocates, namely Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The
conversation always rolls around to this question:
Is
Martin Luther King, Jr. still alive?
I
tell them that he was shot down in the prime of his life by a man who hated him
and his message of equality and respect and freedom. He was killed by
hate. I can’t even begin to explain –
nor do I want to explain – how, because of the color of his skin… the skin God
chose to hold in his heart and his soul and his mind, he was shot and
killed. His wife was left a widow and
his children were left fatherless.
After
the understandable shock and horror and sadness over a senseless killing, our
conversation always ends the same way too:
I
just don't understand, Momma…
And
for the sake of generations to come, and so the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.
will not have been in vain, I hope and pray they NEVER understand...
...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!"
