How Did You Spend MLK Day?

As time passes, the likelihood of forgetting Dr. King's life, his work and the tortured history of people of color in the Americas increases. Observing MLK Day is just one more way to hold on to the memory.
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After 24 years of celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I should have a game plan for how I want to celebrate this holiday -- but I don't.

Life was much simpler in 1986 when the holiday was signed into law and observed. I was in elementary school in Westbury, Long Island and there was no way that we could ignore the holiday. As a predominantly black and Caribbean community, we had mandatory assembly programs filled with civil rights songs, campy plays with a student trying his (or her) best to deliver the I Have a Dream Speech, and a chorus of Stevie Wonder's rendition of the Happy Birthday song.

And why wouldn't we celebrate MLK Day with jubilant celebration? I'm sure that Dr. King's accomplishments despite not being "light skinned black man" with a "negro dialect" -- whatever that is -- would make Harry Reid agree that he was a remarkable leader.

As I got older, I have had a hodgepodge of ways to spend my MLK Day. I have participated in community service projects like painting an inner-city school. Or, I'll support an MLK program where community leaders discuss initiatives to improve health, education, and safety in poorer communities. One of the best MLK Days was spent listening to Dr. Calvin Butts deliver a speech which artfully wove the history, legacy, triumphs and challenges of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement.

However, one thing that I have never been able to do is spend the day being antithetical to King's Dream. Sadly, as I look around, I see many others who are clueless as to how spend the day. As I watch people taking advantage of the day to run household errands, go on shopping sprees at the mall, or recovering after a night of hard partying, I wonder, is there a right way to spend MLK Day? Unlike a religious holiday, there are no clear-cut cultural mores to dictate how we spend MLK Day. In some companies, we even have the choice as to whether we want to work on MLK Day. This is a day where we have the ultimate discretion as to how we spend the day.

Yet, without hesitation, I take the stance that MLK Day is just as important as July 4th and any other national holiday. How can we be frivolous on the day designated to observe the life of a man who gave us Letters from a Birmingham Jail and fought for economic justice for all people? I take the day so seriously that when my husband suggested that we have pizza for dinner, I shut down that idea. (In New Haven, Connecticut, most pizza shops will not deliver to the neighborhoods where most of the city's people of color live.)

As time passes, the likelihood of forgetting Dr. King's life, his work and the tortured history of people of color in the Americas increases. Observing MLK Day is just one more way to hold on to the memory. So, as I gather ideas for next year, I would like to know how you spent today. Who knows, you may influence my decisions for celebrating next year's MLK Day.

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