I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a holiday to celebrate the man who led the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. At 33, he was pressing the case of civil rights with President John F. Kennedy. At 34, he woke up the nation to the need for changes with his “I Have a Dream” speech. At 35, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1968, he was assassinated at age 39, but he left behind a legacy of hope and inspiration.
~Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
~The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” ..the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
Back in early 2000’s when my writing career wasn’t going all that well and I decided to throw aside all thoughts of what might sell and just write a story I wanted to write, I looked back at the 1960’s for inspiration. The resulting story, Scent of Lilacs, the first of my Heart of Hollyhill books, found a publisher and I happily began writing for the Christian market. When I was searching for an idea for my second Hollyhill book, Orchard of Hope, I began researching the Civil Rights movement in the Sixties.
Jocie, my young character in the Hollyhill books, was an innocent in many ways about the Civil Rights movement as I was at her age. I grew up on a farm in a rural community where we knew all our neighbors. They all had similar backgrounds to us. I went to a country school where buses picked up the kids in the area and brought them to school. Kids like me. Some had more money. Some had less. But we all shared the same basic rural or small town background. Black kids had their own elementary school in the neighborhood where most of them lived. The high school kids were bused to another town to school. That sounds really odd now, but until the Civil Rights movement, nobody gave it much thought. If there were signs about different entrances to buildings for blacks, I don’t remember them. But I was a kid. A white kid. A white farm kid. I heard adults talk about the Civil Rights marches and saw the headlines in the newspapers, but I was busy with schoolwork, farm chores, and my own dream of being a writer.
It wasn’t until I began researching the Civil Rights movement for that second Hollyhill book, that I recognized the courage of those who marched to peacefully demand equal rights. In my book, one of the young characters, a girl named Cassidy, was traumatized by being part of the Children’s March in Birmingham that the police tried to disburse by arresting the young people. Then when the march continued, they turned fire hoses on the children and used police dogs to stop the children’s march. Many think that event was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement with the headlines that were published across the country and around the world. It was past time for a change.
Things are still changing and we can hope improving in our country until Reverend King’s following quote is true for us all.
~I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
I also like this quote he made. When you think about him saying that in the 1960’s you have to wonder if things have improved when it comes to our spiritual power.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Then finally here’s a quote that can be an inspiration in many ways. Yes, for the Civil Right Movement back when Martin Luther King Jr. was working to climb that staircase to equality through the law. But I can look at it and also think about how it’s true for me as a writer. I have to have the faith to write that first sentence, that first chapter, even when I don’t know every step to find the end.
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.
If you are old enough, what do you remember about the Sixties?
Comments 2
I started school in a pubic setting in Kansas and don’t know or remember much of those few months. We moved to a nearby Army base where all children of base-housed families were welcome. Ann, like you, I attended segregated public schools (in Georgia and South Carolina). When living in the south, I saw the signs designating separate entrances, separate seating areas, separate restrooms, separate drinking fountains, and sometimes signs that denied entrance, denied service, or denied use. When I was twelve, I remember wanting to ride at the back of the bus. My mother told me I couldn’t. I didn’t understand. Upon moving to a small town in Indiana where I completed my high school years, I experienced integration on a very small scale. A young man in the class behind mine was the only black student. There were times when he was denied privileges we take for granted. Some restaurants denied entrance to him and to his family. He sometimes had to eat on the team bus after a football or basketball game because a restaurant did not allow him to enter because of the color of his skin.
Some things have changed.
We will forever have improvements to make.
I like the MLK quotes you chose. They will be entered into my journal.
Author
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Rebecca. I know that some of the college teams had that problem about their players getting to go in restaurants when they started integrating their teams, especially when they played in the South. Kids now really can’t imagine how it used to be any more than most of us women can imagine how it used to be for women before times changes. Thank goodness many of those kinds of things have changed.