History is Always Happening Around Us
January 19, 2009
Today is officially Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States.
When I was a kid my daughter’s age, it wasn’t a holiday. We had President’s Day - always the 3rd Monday in February, it took the place of the former federal holiday of George Washington’s birthday (February 22nd) and while there were attempts to get it to also celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (February 12th) the federal holiday apparently still just commemorates Washington. Different states “do” it differently – but that’s kind of how states are.
Whatever the case, since it’s a Federal holiday, it meant that the post office didn’t deliver mail, the banks were all closed, the stores all ran sales, and school kids got an extra day off in the middle of the year.
Somewhere in the middle of the Reagan years (1983) the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day bill got signed into law by the president – setting aside the 3rd Monday in January as a Federal holiday (Dr. King’s actual birthday was January 15th.) First celebrated officially in 1986, I was long out of public school and when it became a reality, all I was thinking about was that “there was no way that businesses, schools, and other organizations were going to go for one 3 day weekend in January and another one a month later in February after they’d already lost January 1st to the post-Amateur-Night-Out hangover holiday.”
I was right and here we are 23 years later with no consistent practice. Some places give their employees MLK day off. Some give them Presidents Day. Some give them neither. A small percentage give them both, but mostly only banks and private schools. There is still no mail delivery – unless you count Fed-Ex and UPS.
The thing is, I was so clueless back then. This holiday? It’s more than a 3-day weekend-no-work-or-school-opportunity. Not unlike every other Federal holiday that has been turned into an excuse to skip Monday at work, it was enacted for a reason. The point is to take a day to think about why we honor the day… whether it’s because of our Presidents, or our War dead (Memorial Day) or any other reason – we’re supposed to think about it.
That MLK Day occurs the day before Inauguration Day this year (January 20th since 1933 and the passing of the XXth Amendment) seems a fortuitous happenstance. Tomorrow, we in the U.S. are witnessing the swearing in of the first non-Caucasian President of the United States of America. I’d like to think Dr. King would be smiling if he knew that.
I know. You noticed that I used the phrase “non-Caucasian” above… Not because I’m trying to downplay the fact that he’s our ‘First African-American President’ but because our soon-to-be President Obama represents more than just the African-American citizens – he represents our European-American citizens (his mother was a Caucasian woman of Irish & English descent) – he represents ALL of our minorities, and our young, our old, our rich, our poor, our educated and our disadvantaged. Even those who can’t stand the fact that he’s becoming our President? He represents you too. Because he’s becoming the President of the United States of America.
I know that most of the world will spend the next 4 to 8 years and beyond calling him “our first black President” – but I also hope that someday, that adjective becomes less impressive than his other achievements. I hope that he just becomes “one of our best Presidents ever” instead of people focusing so much on the color of his skin or his gender or something else that he never had any control over.
As Dr. King said so very many years ago “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” I think he would’ve been impressed by the content Obama’s character – I hope I’m right.
Tomorrow, you can find me hanging out at TotallyHer.com – where I’ll be participating in a Community Service Project to in honor of President Obama’s inauguration. I’ll be spending my time learning from these amazing women:
Liz Strauss, Anita Campbell, Kelly Phillips Erb, Jessica Smith, Kelby Carr, Susan Payton, Miranda Marquit, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, Kelly McCausey, Char Polanosky, Barbara Jones & Wendy Piersall at:
That is when I’m not trying to help out a bit myself (3:30pm EST / 12:30pm PST) or watching the Inauguration ceremonies with my daughter (12:00pm EST / 9:00am PST).
Because I may not have grown up with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – but she will… and she’ll have grown up never knowing what it was like wondering when and if we would reach a day where Dr. King’s dream looked like it might come true.
See you tomorrow. When we watch history being written once again… and if you happen to join me here too.
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