by Akilah Bolden-Monifa
Martin Luther King Day is much more than a holiday.
I often wonder what those who didn't know the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. think of the man and the holiday. I don't have that problem.
I am a 54-year-old lesbian of African descent who grew up in
Huntsville, Ala. My parents strategized and marched with King. I
learned about civil disobedience and protests from them when I was 4
years old. I heard them talk of engaging in sit-ins at segregated lunch
counters. And they explained to me that we would not be buying new
clothes from the segregated stores in town on Easter because King, in
conjunction with the local churches, had organized a boycott. If we
couldn't shop at these stores by entering the front door, then we
wouldn't patronize them.
Easter clothes and accoutrements were a very big deal among a lot of
African Americans in the South. It was the time when we put on our
finest clothes. We all got entirely new outfits, the whole regalia,
including underwear, shoes, purses, hats, and gloves.
So it was a very big deal to forgo this. In fact, the organizing
strategy was to wear blue jeans that Easter Sunday in 1962. Now, little
black girls did not wear pants to church anywhere in the 1960s, much
less jeans. But it was a visible way to demonstrate our outrage with
stores that discriminated against us based on race. King knew that this
would be a hard sell in the black community, but he also understood that
it was essential.
I never met King, but my father so vividly described the meetings and
organizing sessions around the boycott that in my young mind I had met
the great man. Plus, in a lot of black homes in the 1960s, there were
three pictures hanging on the walls: Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy and
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
My father, just five years younger than King, spoke of him both as a
good friend and as a genius. His oratory skills were legendary, and I'm
not simply speaking of his oft-quoted "I Have a Dream" speech. If there
was an opportunity to hear King preach, you took that opportunity. His
down-home preaching was so good that it made you want to holler and fan
yourself at the same time.
I wonder what King, who would have been 83 this year, would make of
the country in 2012. He would notice the national holiday and all of the
streets named after him, but I imagine he would not be impressed. King
was a man of substance. Stamps, holidays, and streets were not in his
master plan.
King advocated for diversity, for an end to discrimination. At the
time of his death, his focus was not just on race; he was speaking in
support of labor unions and their right to strike and organize for
better working conditions and benefits. His "dream" has not come to
fruition. But neither are we in the nightmare that some might suggest. A
lot of folks simply "talk the talk" rather than "walk the walk" around
the diversity King dreamed of and worked toward. Some of us spend the
majority of our time with people who look like us rather than those who
reflect the rich diversity of which King spoke.
King had not specifically focused on diversity based on sexual
orientation, but there is no doubt that he would have embraced equality
regardless of sexual orientation, including, but not limited to, the
right to marry and adopt children. King worked with and organized with
Bayard "Brother Outsider" Rustin, who was openly gay. King's widow,
Coretta Scott King, supported full marriage equality for the LGBT
community before her death, just as Dr. King would undoubtedly have
done.
On Jan. 16 and beyond, I will honor the anniversary of King's birth,
as I did even in the years before it became a federal holiday. I will
shed tears over the loss of a great man and a philosopher. I will rue
the lack of knowledge that most have of his life and legacy. And I will
offer a not-so-silent prayer that the best way to honor King is by
listening or reading some of his speeches and by "walking the walk" of
diversity. I will hope for all-inclusive diversity regardless of race,
color, national origin, sexual orientation or identity, and physical or
mental differences.
It has been nearly 44 years since Dr. King's death. It is time to
end all forms of discrimination against folk. Actions do speak louder
than words.
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Do more than "lift every voice and
sing": speak out against discrimination and advocate for legislative and
social change for its end, as well.
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