MLK, Jr Day 2022

Greetings Friends.
Today, amidst a muddle so many other pressing global and personal life events, we have the opportunity to celebrate the remarkable life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of the country will spend this day focused in other directions. That he was a major force in bringing our reluctant nation into an awareness and a reassessment of its troubling, self-congratulatory and brutal history of injustice and denial, is no longer in dispute, except for the cadre of hate, greed and self-focused revisionists now trying to roll back the clock on education, voting, civil, human, labor, environmental and other hard-won rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

Our nation is facing a challenge every bit as aggressive and threatening as those Dr. King made clear in that amazing speech delivered to the world on August 28, 1963. And we, weary, worn and distracted by a world sick with disease and division, now face an ongoing, pitched battle against those forces that is anything but certain in its resolution. I’m reading and then listening to this speech today twice in an effort to shake off the cobwebs of inattention and reconnect myself to the struggle that might seem individually distant, personally insignificant or perhaps totally overwhelming. It’s a struggle that we can win, but it will take more work and trust than we’re giving each other now. That’s hard to imagine but it’s true.

Here’s the speech. Listen or read it today… or both. Hear it in your heart of hearts for what it means to this nation… today… in THIS time. One day at a time, we’re being called on to make a difference, together. I’m hoping and praying that you feel we are up to the task ahead.

If so, let’s do this. One day, one fight, one small victory at a time. For the future of us all, we must overcome!