remembering martin luther king, jr.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States. It’s a nationally recognized holiday to remember a man who did as much as anyone to promote a vision of America where all people are considered equal.

When I was in high school, I had a math teacher, Mr. McVeety, who asked the students not to just view the day as a day when we didn’t have to go to school, but to spend time reflecting on MLK - his life and his legacy, to read his speeches, etc.

I’ve never forgotten Mr. McVeety’s appeal, though admittedly, I’ve not made the time as often as I would have liked. As with many things, the best time to have started was yesterday. The next best time is today.

With that in mind, I’m making time today to remember MLK and I will be reading MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail¹ and his speech, ‘I Have a Dream’².

Resources

• ¹ Stanford University has a digital facsimile of the original letter on their website, Letter From Birmingham Jail, MLK | Stanford. I am grateful to L. Kip Wheeler, professor at Carson-Newman University, for providing a clean copy of the letter on his website. Letter From Birmingham Jail | Carson-Newman
• ² I found MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on Archives.gov