MLK Day- A New Beginning

My generation must learn from the past and recognize that real change does not come at the speed of fast food or instant downloads.  It is easy to look at history and see only the high water marks of transformation and forget the years of work that it took to get there.

21 years before I was born, on August 28^th 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. told all those gathered before the Lincoln Memorial, “1963 is not and end but a beginning.”  For nearly 50 years, across the country, brave men and women have lived out those words and committed, or even lost their lives to continue that work.  24 years after I was born, on November 4^th 2008, our President-Elect told the country:

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

On that night, he spoke of those who had fought to clear the way before him so that he could reach a day that once again, was not an end but a beginning.

I can not help but be inspired by the great clouds of witnesses that have walked this path before.  They lived lives of commitment and action out of a responsibility to move the country forward and passed on a great legacy that includes all those who have changed our country for the better.  It is because of them, I am not afraid to hope that our country can change in the future.

My generation must learn from the past and recognize that real change does not come at the speed of fast food or instant downloads.  It is easy to look at history and see only the high water marks of transformation and forget the years of work that it took to get there.  Civil rights leaders had fought for generations before King was able to declare “a fierce urgency of now.”  It was 8 years between the Montgomery Bus Boycott and “I Have a Dream.”  It took another year to pass the Civil Rights Act and another year after that to pass the Voting Rights Act.

I stood in Springfield on a cold winter’s morning almost 2 years ago and will stand in the back of the crowd to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration.  The reason I can stand and celebrate is faith.  It was by faith that some in this country saw the day that we would elect an African-American President even when the country was shackled by Jim Crow.  It is that same faith that allows me to believe that one day our schools will lead the world, our economy will grow, everyone will have health care, no one will go with out a roof and our country will continue to change.