Jan. 14, 2024

Ninety-five.

That’s how old the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be tomorrow if he were still with us. 

I don’t know that I can say much about the man and his legacy that hasn’t been said, so I won’t try. But I will say that his dream is the life vest that keeps me and countless others afloat in what can feel at times like an endless sea of hatred and hopelessness.

King once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” 

That bend isn’t natural, though. 

It takes work grounded in tenacity, resilience, and compassion. Struggles are struggles because hard work is being done in opposition to those who would dismantle the dream. Or, as Stevie Wonder phrased it in Happy Birthday, from his 1980 album, Hotter Than July, it’s a struggle against those who “should make it become an illusion.”

These days, King’s dream as an illusion is downright fashionable among some crowds. In 1983, Martin Luther King Day was made a federal holiday, with a fair amount of opposition. It wasn’t until 2000 that the holiday was celebrated at a state level among all 50 states. New Hampshire held out until a 1999 vote. 

As a country, we stand at a precipice, overlooking an uncertain future. But we can’t back away, resigning ourselves to losing the dream.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, King stood on a second-floor balcony at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, TN, overlooking a crowd from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He surely knew the risks, given the atmospheric conditions of American society at the time. But he did it anyway.

A single gunshot later, King’s dream became ours to carry or neglect. The choice is ours, every single day.

Because it should never be
Just because some cannot see
The dream as clear as he
That they should make it become an illusion