A Day ON More Than a Day OFF

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I haven't given as much thought as maybe I should have about this man, this topic. Having a snow day today gives me the opportunity to think about how MLK Jr. and the other civil rights leaders, in essence, made it possible for my family to conceivably adopt an African child. Mind-blowing, right? While I've always considered his works for equality through non-violence an amazing work and life, I've not been as grateful for it as I feel today. The goal of today should be to at least reflect and make a plan of action about what acts of service can be done to honor this life and his work.  If you need a little extra inspiration,  I'm posting the "I have a dream" video below, but I also picked out a few quotes from him that I really connect with, and show his brilliance.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."


"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but your refuse to hate him."


"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?"


"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."


"That old law about "an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind."


"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character- that is the goal of true education."

"The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt."

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."


"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 have a dream that on day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."


"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"