My calendar tells me that today is Martin Luther King Day.
This federal holiday honors the civil rights leader and is also recognized as a national day of service, encouraging Americans to volunteer in their communities.
And as we seek to speak with our friends, our children, our grandchildren, and, yes, for some of us, our great-grandchildren, we are quick to tell them who he was. We tell them how Dr. King was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which protested racial discrimination in federal and state law and in civil society. And as we now know, it is appropriate for us to honor this great man. We are proud of our society for what the movement has done, leading to several groundbreaking legislative reforms in the United States, and as a nation, we are better for it.
For many of us, an early first step has been to read Heather Fox Richardson’s essay, published yesterday. Then, if we can, let’s find the time to discuss it with the people we know.
We’ll all feel better about a lot of things.