MLK

This was meant to be posted yesterday, but unfortunately the day got away from me... MLK day, my thoughts:

Today we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. . Today we celebrate freedom. Real freedom. There are no propaganda ads with American flags waving in the dusty wind, with little black kids and white kids hugging one another and people wearing colored pins. You cannot package this kind of freedom with corny slogans or push people into believing in it with fear... we are living a dream of freedom. Tonight as I sit in an apartment complex occupied by older white people, Armenians, a homosexual couple and a couple of brown people sprinkled in... I am living that freedom. Working for women who make more than their male counterparts, we are living that dream. What would Harriet Tubman say if she were watching the South Carolina debates tonight?? What would Dr. King's official statement be in regards to Bob Johnson's statement bashing Barack Obama? What would he say about Barack?? What would he say to Barack??

Dr. King marched on Washington DC forty years ago where hundreds of white American settlers fought for their freedom a hundred years before... it took nearly 100 years to shake down the capital and stand this country on it's ears. It has only taken us forty years to do it again. I am blessed to be apart of this right now. To have the freedoms I have and continue to keep those freedoms that were handed down to me. The freedom I have now is not my own, it belongs to The Freedom Riders, The Little Rock Nine, The Black Panthers, Frederick Douglass, The Conductors of the Underground Railroad, The Abolitionist. My freedom is running for President... I own that! I own being able to choose a woman or a black man for MY PRESIDENT!! I own keeping my right to work just as hard and make just as much as my male counterparts! I own keeping my right to be proud of who I am and share my culture with others! I own keeping Dr. King's dream alive within me and sharing it with everyone I can.

That speech... I Have A Dream... its a beautifully written speech. It was spoken with passion, love, frustration and hope. Dr. King had hope. He had no proof that it would ever be different, but he hoped it would be. He hoped with his heart and his soul, and then he acted on that hope and the people followed. That speech would have only been a bunch of words on a page without his action. I love my freedoms! I am thankfully that someone thought that much of my future without knowing me to make it possible for me to choose where I could go to school, and not have my race dictate that for me. I don't know what I'm feeling, why I feel the way I do... but the excitement is overwhelming. Something is happening in this country. Something is happening in our community. We are no longer stagnant and I'm grateful. Black, white, brown... we are moving in a cohesive unit and the love is overwhelming.

Today we thank Dr. King for leading us into freedom with hopes and dreams and a plan to make them a reality. Today we should thank one another for maintaining the reality. One Love!

xo
Brooke