Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Guess what, Mom? Monday, we get out of school for King Luther Day.” That is what I said running in the house after coming home from a day in the first grade. My Mom asked me who King Luther was and I wasn’t sure, but we were out for his birthday.

At the time, my family was living in Mason, Ohio a small farming community 30 minutes north of Cincinnati. My Dad commuted into the city every day as a chemical engineer, and  we drove once a week to attend a traditional church.

My mother decided I should know who Martin Luther King, Jr was, what he had done for us and how he had changed history. She told me all about him from her perspective and then she read to me from the encyclopedia.

My interest in MLK grew over the years and I read “I Have a Dream” as a sophomore in a private high school and wrote a paper about him. MLK’s devotion to God is missed in most of the memorials to him. He knew God’s word and wanted it to be applied equally to all men.

I have never experienced being the object of racism, but it hurts my heart to see that it still exists. I don’t pretend to know what it is like to be overlooked for a promotion or for someone to not do business with me because of the color of my skin. This is not the 1960’s when the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, and many things have changed. May we continue to change and move forward.