On Friday mornings, I help out in Parker’s kindergarten class. During center time, I teach one of the centers as the kids rotate in groups. This past Friday, my assignment from the teacher was to read a picture book on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. As I read about Dr. King’s life and dream, I looked into the eyes of confused children.
What I was reading to them didn’t make any sense. Dr. King had a dream that:
“. . . 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.”
The kids had so many questions: Why couldn’t the kids go to school together? Why couldn’t the people ride the bus together?
I live in southern California where ethnic diversity is very much an integral part of everyday life. In my son’s classroom alone, there are children from Peru, Mexico, China, Korea, Egypt, Lebanon, and Canada. It’s one of the things I love most about living here. Children from all over the world gather in a single classroom, just as Dr. King once envisioned. And they’re friends. They can’t even fathom that it might have once been different elsewhere.
Dr. King had a dream that kids – no matter their color – could learn together, play together, and live together. In some parts of the country at least, his dream is now a reality.
Denise J. Hughes 
I watched Dr. King's speech yesterday with my husband, and we cried. He was so young and so passinate about bringing God's justice to our country. God gives us all dreams and they take many different forms, but they are all valuable to the expansion of His will on earth.
Beautiful! Wow, I love this post. His dream is now reality though I'm sure, incomplete… Making beautiful progress together.
Blessings,
Melanie
Kathy, it's a beautiful picture indeed!
FI: His speech in its entirety is so moving. I totally understand.
Rosslyn, I hear ya'. That which I am willing to for are people more than “dreams.” All the more reason it so amazing that Dr. King was willing to die for something he could only imagine in his mind's eye yet knew intrinsically to be true.
Laugh: Thanks!
I too think it is so neat! I very much enjoyed your post!
Maybe I'm not dreaming big enough. Or maybe the things for which I'm willing to die aren't dreams, but realities and persons. 🙂
I watched Dr. King's speech yesterday with my husband, and we cried. He was so young and so passinate about bringing God's justice to our country. God gives us all dreams and they take many different forms, but they are all valuable to the expansion of His will on earth.
I love the thought of seeing those kiddos together and the questioning wonder in their eyes, and the delight they must feel in hearing the story that they are living out his dream!
Very sweet message!
Melanie, you're right. His dream IS a reality in many places – although still incomplete, especially in certain areas.
Terry, it is wonderful that kids find that sort of discrimination incomprehensible today. BTW – I LOVE your profile picture. Beautiful!!!
Beth, wow, I didn't know that you were raised in the Air Force. Have you written about some of those stories?
DJ – when I was young I didn't quite understand all of this either. I was raised in the Air Force and so we didn't experience the same racial prejudices as some.
Thanks for this post today my friend. I am glad that MLK had a dream and the dream was lived out.
Dr. King's legacy has made a tremendous difference in our nation. It's great that kids find it incomprehensible that he needed to do what he did.
Beautiful! Wow, I love this post. His dream is now reality though I'm sure, incomplete… Making beautiful progress together.
Blessings,
Melanie