“I mean, how often do you witness a miracle?” one of my friends, an English as a Second Language teacher in New Jersey asked me when I mentioned I’d been asked to write a piece about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy.
What, I pondered, was I supposed to say?
Until USARiseUp mentioned the story to me, I hadn’t been sitting in the corner of my sofa, looking up occasionally from my book, my glass of wine or the TV and saying, “So, about Dr. King…”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to write this piece. I wasn’t sure I could write this piece.
I grew up in Rhode Island, part of a large, loud Italian family, one that invited strangers into the fold and melded them into an ever-growing, multi-layered amoeba clump of family and friends. We didn’t really care where you came from. We didn’t care what color you were. You were Dad’s friend from the studio or an uncle’s girlfriend. Someone in our family liked you—that was enough for us.
I didn’t pay much attention to race, prejudice, or any of the other things Dr. King and his followers fought so valiantly to end.
As a little girl, I went to a progressive private school, with classmates of all colors and beliefs. We played Dreidel games at Hanukkah, wrote reports on accomplished women and people of color. We made food from around the globe in our home economics class, and blended seamlessly together. As kids of the 80s, we bonded over who had what Garfield books, or helping each other through our gym’s obstacle course. We spent time memorizing the tool panel from industrial arts class, and going to birthday parties at roller rinks.
I loved how the African-American girls in my classes wore their hair in multiple pig tails, held together with those elastic bands with the clacking beads on the ends, beads that bounced musically when we’d run around on the playground at recess. I was fascinated to see how the skin colors of the kids in my class ranged from a lovely alabaster, to rich olives, and stunning ebony.
Most of all, I loved seeing how we could all be so different—and have so much in common.
Therefore, it somehow seemed unfair that I try to encapsulate Dr. King’s legacy into a column. From the marches on Selma, sit ins at diners, a letter from a Birmingham jail, and the march on Washington, I did not experience these things and they all seemed very far away from me as I was growing up—both in terms of locale and ideology. I couldn’t—and to a large degree, still can’t—fathom how anyone could be denied something based on their color.
Ultimately, that’s why I said yes to writing this piece. USARiseUp has always been a publication about celebrating our sameness through our differences, and I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to say that I grew up knowing that you accept people by the content of their character, and do not judge them by the color of their skin.
However, somehow, that seemed self-aggrandizing and egocentric. I wanted something more for this man who gave so much to so many.
Therefore, I began asking my friends who are in their 30s and early 40s, “What do you think about when you think of Dr. King?” I told them, “I’m writing this story and I don’t want to be a voice for my generation.”
I asked some of the friends I grew up with in Rhode Island. I asked friends from Houston, where I live now, and I asked family members in California. I emailed. I called. I asked African-American friends, Caucasian friends, Asian friends.
The response was humbling, even to the point of overwhelming.
“I remember the first time I heard the N-word,” my boyfriend’s niece, a plucky California blonde, responded when I asked for her thoughts. Her elementary school best friend was an African-American girl who’d moved to southern California from Chicago, and one of the only blacks in their grade.
“One day, my friend came into our classroom sobbing her 9-year-old heart out because another African-American girl had called her ‘the N-word,’” she says. “I had no idea what she meant. My friend looked at me like I was crazy and told me the word and how awful it was.”
My boyfriend’s niece says her education in racial hatred began that day, but she thinks she knows the source of her own naiveté: “I was raised to understand the noble, eloquent and peaceable image of Dr King. And I came to understand at an early age, the importance of equality, humanity and if necessary, civil disobedience.”
An elementary school friend of mine now supervises and supports an inner city public education program. Specifically, she works with children with significant emotional and behavioral issues, who are poor in money, spirituality, family and in community support. On her Facebook page, she has a quote from Dr. King: "If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today, I still have a dream.”
I asked her why.
“I don't know my impact on ‘my kids,’” she replied. “Their barriers to education can be overwhelming, but I always want to have hope. What would I have without hope? What would my kids have without my hope for them?” She said Dr. King taught her that.
Another friend, one whose been exploring his own spirituality and connection to the world around him, offered this: “I am only now just realizing a type of spirituality about which I believe he spoke so eloquently. As with many great thinkers and peace-makers, his message was a bit ahead of the times, and sadly fell on too few agreeable ears.”
While his pessimism is understandable in the fact that we really haven’t conquered prejudice, another friend, an Asian-American who directs a telesales force, saw it differently.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy has given me the opportunity to be successful without prejudice or worries,” he wrote to me. “He led a movement that allowed all people to get a fair shake in life without judging us by our color, but rather by what we have to offer. I am forever grateful for him and all the great leaders in history who bravely stood tall so we could all share the same rights.”
I was astounded by the outpouring of thought, and amazed at the depth of ideas my friends expressed. I was proud to see how many of them saw ways in which Dr. King’s legacy mattered in their everyday lives.
“It really was a miracle,” my ESL teacher friend emphasized. “He changed the face of this country, and he did it following in the footsteps of another gentle man who made a miracle happen, Gandhi.”
I am a writer, and writers write, which is another reason I said yes to this assignment. I believe passionately in the power of words.
Dr. King’s words moved mountains of injustice and intolerance, unveiled them for what they were, and along with others who believed in him, chipped away at them. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote.
Perhaps that’s what I am most excited about the responses I received. My friends and I, we Gen Xers, we get it. We are Dr. King’s legacy. With these thoughtful, insightful people carrying on his lessons of love, tolerance, and harmony, and even though Dr. King’s work is far from finished, we happily pick up the mantle where he left off; we bring his words of courage and character into the lives of future generations.