Today is MLK Jr. Day. This is one of my favorite holidays because I live and work less than 2 miles from where a lot of the civil rights movement happened. When I look at the pictures of people being hosed down and dogs attacking, I know the exact spot in the park where it happened. I drive by the 16th Street Baptist Church several times each month. I can’t help but ponder Dr. King’s influence, because the results of his life and death are seen everywhere in Birmingham.
One of my favorite documents is Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It was written a short distance from my office. It is one of the most moving directives written during the civil rights movement.
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you…then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. - excerpted from Letter from a Birmingham Jail
The holiday seems especially poignant this year. I know I’m one of many who wishes Dr. King had lived to see this moment. Tomorrow we inagurate our first President who is part of a minority group. We have a long way to go, but this holiday and this inaguration is confirmation that we’re on the right track. We owe a lot to Dr. King and his friends for leading us here.
