Martin Luther King Holiday Musings

Today in Christ Church we celebrated Martin Luther King's birthday. It is one of those flexible holidays which are celebrated on Monday even though Dr. King was born on January 15th.

We heard readings from Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. As I listened to the selections I was struck by how appropriate they were for today.

Why we can't wait. People keep telling us to wait and things will be better. We African Americans wonder how long shall we wait. I wonder what Dr. King would have said about the photos of people on the Gulf coast and New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. It looked like a third world country and this was America. Our leaders were saying help would arrive. It has been two years and help has still not arrived for some people. How long should they wait?

Brown vs Board of Education was supposed to integrate schools and make education equal for all students. Well the schools have been integrated but white people (in New Jersey) have moved to the suburbs leaving the urban schools to have a majority of African American and Hispanic students. Is the education equal, no not really. How long can we wait?

The new school funding plan will put more money in school districts with large underrepresented populations statewide. This changes the old Abbott schools who were the urban schools and received more funding. Will this work? I really don't know because not all the extra money in the urban school districts was used for education purposes.

But back to MLK. Dr. King spoke about the fact that African Americans would like to be able to order a cup of coffee from a lunch counter. My cousins who live in Springfield Mass drove my grandmother south to Greensboro North Carolina. They had grown up in the north were there was no overt discrimination. The first thing my cousin Robert noted that he could not stop everywhere for gasoline. He was told to go to the "Nigger" gas station. The other thing he found out that some of our cousins who lived in Greensboro and were attending North Carolina A & T were involved in the sit in at the lunch counter in Greensboro. My southern cousins told Robert to stay away from them because they were afraid since he did not know the problems in the south he might get in trouble.

Dr. King also talked about traveling by car and having sleep in his car. This was shown in the Percy Julian DVD on NOVA were Dr. Julian a respected chemist and business man was also forced to sleep in his car on occasion. When my parents and I traveled we consulted the "Red Book" a book that told Negros the names of hotels that would accommodate them. This book was used not only for the south but the north. My parents consulted that book when they went with me to graduate school in Minneapolis Minnesota. They were given the room that overlooked an air shaft near the elevator. I have been back to Minneapolis since and that hotel has been torn down! My father was so excited when the civil rights act was passed because we could now stay in any hotel in Washington DC!. Even when I was traveling for my company in the south I always had my reservation in my hand when I went up to the desk for fear that they would turn me away. That did happen one time when I had a confirmed reservation at a hotel in New Orleans. But they booked us in another hotel and paid that night's rent and the taxi to and from their hotel. We arrived late at night and they had overbooked the hotel. We also got a free night at the hotel that we had originally booked!

MLK sitings.
My mother and father and I were at Riverside Church when Dr. King preached. My father decided we should go and I went along for the ride.
I also went to the second "March on Washington". I stood in front so that I could see the speakers. I happened to be in DC for an American Chemical Society meeting and decided to go. I got on the Metro and arrived at the mall right in front of the speakers platform!

So these are my thoughts about Martin Luther King's birthday 2008.
Jeannette Brown