Happy birthday, Dr. King!

While I'm a huge fan of Dr. King, I'm not so much a fan of MLK Day, since increasingly it seems a day of empty rhetoric and false promises. A day in which politicians--never my favorite people--verbally vomit about "The Dream" and congratulate themselves, and us, on how far we've come blah blah blah, and let's "honor his memory" by doing something completely innocuous. And don't even get me started on the King family and their race to profit from Martin's memory. I have too much to do to have my blood pressure raised this early in the day.
So, I thought I'd keep it brief--it's a day on for me, as usual--and give a link to one of my favorite 'StoryCorps' episodes about an inspiring young man who chose to make something triumphant out of his personal tragedy...which I think Dr. King, with his almost superhuman courage and presence of mind, could really get behind: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/30/141779097/from-pre-med-to-teacher-a-new-kind-of-healing

If you don't already listen to StoryCorps (www.storycorps.org), this is a great opportunity to discover a small gem of Americana: Americans (husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, neighbors, widowers, killers and the parents of their victims), asking each other questions about lives lived and lessons learned. That sounds unbearably pretentious: the pieces are anything but. This particular piece, in which a father discusses the murder of his daughter, is a perfect example: both heart-breaking and inspiring.
Share | StoryCorps