Remembering Dr. King
Today we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He was truly a great man and a great American...he was our Mahatma Gandhi. We must never forget that era of our nation's history when Dr. King made his call to awaken the moral authority within each of us...or the way he energized those even he himself could not have imagined needed to be inspired to stand up, to march, to decry, to demand equal rights.
We owe him an enormous debt of gratitude, and I will always stand with him.
I wonder how different our world would be today had he not been killed. I wonder the same about Robert Kennedy, another of my heroes. What they had in common was a commitment to civil rights and a commitment to end the Viet Nam war. I don't think we would have had a Nixon or Reagan and maybe not even a Carter...
How I wish Dr. King could have lived to see Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton run as viable presidential candidates today. Yes, Hillary too...because racism and sexism are different sides of the same coin.
I also can't forget something else about this honorable National Holiday--how hard it was fought for, and how hard others fought against it, how long they fought to defeat it...even a sitting president.
Ronald Reagan opposed the bill that would make this day a National Holiday. Reagan relented in his opposition only after Congress passed the King Day bill with an overwhelming veto-proof majority (338 to 90 in the House of Representatives and 78 to 22 in the Senate).
Unfortunately for many, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is simply a day off. Let's not forget how this day celebrates one of the most important men in American history... as we stop and think of him and recognize his achievements.
