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I try not to look at the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday as just another day off, but I'm afraid that sometimes I do. Yesterday I wasn't very focused on more than the fact that I could sleep in a bit and I didn't have to work that day. It isn't as if I was unaware of the observation of the day, but rather I war with myself in that I think we should keep the memory of MLK in the forefront of our society always, not just on a designated bank holiday. Memorial observances, as such, have never made much sense to me, really. I understand the original meaning and spirit behind it, but there is a collective slide we do...from veneration and reverence, to respect, to forgetting why we even have the extra day in our delighted rush to leave town, squeeze in that ski trip, go see Aunt Suzie, and what have you.
In April of 2002 I and several friends converged for a mini-reunion of online family in Memphis, TN. One of our members resided there and she was a single mom who also took care of her aging mother, therefore she couldn't travel and she often missed our various meet & greets. We called our trip "The mountain comes to Mohammed" There was perhaps 30 of us and we all had a lovely 4-day weekend.
About 20 of us went to the National Civil Rights Museum. Our ages ranged from 25 to 55 so most of us lived through those turbulent years at various ages. Regardless, we were all awestruck by the complexity and the depth of the exhibits, the history of the struggle for equality that seems all at once unique to the United States and yet is universal in theme.
I was young and did not have an awareness of what was happening in those formative years of 1961-1965. I was out of the country from 1966-1969. I don't remember the horrible summer of 1968, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., or even the Democratic Convention that year in Chicago. I was in Japan and seven years of age. My mother was still effective at shielding me from the worst of the news. (That would end quickly, by the summer of 1969 when we moved to Washington DC and I became sharply aware of the large world around us.)
As I moved slowly through the museum I found myself in the company of different friends. We all moved at different paces. I went through the majority of the museum with my friend Greg. He is from Canada, born and raised outside of Vancouver. At 48, he is old enough to remember the events which unfold before our eyes here as historical documentation, newspaper clippings, the actual jail cell where Martin was incarcerated, and lastly...you exit the museum at the Lorraine hotel.
You see the room in which Martin stayed and you realize you are standing on the balcony he stood on. You look down and the cars beneath you are no older than 1966 and you feel rooted to the spot, frozen in time, paralyzed in a way that makes it difficult to breathe. The audio of the newscasters, their frantic voices announcing that Martin has been shot, rings in your ears and fills the very air around you.
I turned to look up and there was Greg, as frozen as I was, tears streaming down his face and I wished at that moment that I could cry too.
Never, on any 2nd Monday in January, have I forgotten that image, that feeling, those surroundings.
In April of 2002 I and several friends converged for a mini-reunion of online family in Memphis, TN. One of our members resided there and she was a single mom who also took care of her aging mother, therefore she couldn't travel and she often missed our various meet & greets. We called our trip "The mountain comes to Mohammed" There was perhaps 30 of us and we all had a lovely 4-day weekend.
About 20 of us went to the National Civil Rights Museum. Our ages ranged from 25 to 55 so most of us lived through those turbulent years at various ages. Regardless, we were all awestruck by the complexity and the depth of the exhibits, the history of the struggle for equality that seems all at once unique to the United States and yet is universal in theme.
I was young and did not have an awareness of what was happening in those formative years of 1961-1965. I was out of the country from 1966-1969. I don't remember the horrible summer of 1968, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., or even the Democratic Convention that year in Chicago. I was in Japan and seven years of age. My mother was still effective at shielding me from the worst of the news. (That would end quickly, by the summer of 1969 when we moved to Washington DC and I became sharply aware of the large world around us.)
As I moved slowly through the museum I found myself in the company of different friends. We all moved at different paces. I went through the majority of the museum with my friend Greg. He is from Canada, born and raised outside of Vancouver. At 48, he is old enough to remember the events which unfold before our eyes here as historical documentation, newspaper clippings, the actual jail cell where Martin was incarcerated, and lastly...you exit the museum at the Lorraine hotel.
You see the room in which Martin stayed and you realize you are standing on the balcony he stood on. You look down and the cars beneath you are no older than 1966 and you feel rooted to the spot, frozen in time, paralyzed in a way that makes it difficult to breathe. The audio of the newscasters, their frantic voices announcing that Martin has been shot, rings in your ears and fills the very air around you.
I turned to look up and there was Greg, as frozen as I was, tears streaming down his face and I wished at that moment that I could cry too.
Never, on any 2nd Monday in January, have I forgotten that image, that feeling, those surroundings.
