Keeper of the Dream

I wrote a little piece about MLK for a scholarship a little while back, and I like it so much I figure I might as well share it here. Link's at the bottom of the post.

Enjoy.

Much love,
KL

Keeper of the Dream

When I began writing this essay, I felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t run into any issues during the creative process. Trust me, it was a hard lesson about the woes of hubris. It took ten minutes of staring at a blank laptop screen for me to realize that I had absolutely no idea where to even begin.

The prompt was simple enough: write a 500 word essay about the ideals and principles of civil rights legend Martin Luther King. It should’ve been as easy as pulling all the facts I’ve been fed since elementary school about the humble, eloquent reverend from my memory bank and regurgitating it back.

But that was the issue. It was almost too easy. All I knew were the dull numbers, the population statistics and the locations of speeches, nothing actually humanizing or revealing about the man himself. I knew nothing about the soul, the inner minutia and spirit, of Dr. King’s legacy, or how it continues to influence society today. After a week of serious pondering I began to wonder if perhaps I was just too inept to do King’s ideology any justice.

But one day, it came to me. Subtly. There wasn’t a flash of lightening or a magnificent sign from God. There wasn’t even a meager light bulb to illuminate my way. It was more of a gradual, pinkening dawn of understanding. The more I paid attention, the more I learned.

His dream is everywhere.

It lives in the diverse classrooms that we learn in, it bathes in the water fountains we drink out of, it frolics in public pools we share, and the cozy restaurants and cafes we dine in. It sleeps in our cars and dances at our birthday parties and cries at our funerals.

And if I look hard enough, I can sometimes see it gazing back at me in my bathroom mirror in the early hours of the morning as I prepare for the day.

Dr. King’s principles are so deeply interwoven into the colorful tapestry of our young nation that over time we’ve begun to accept those honorable threads as social norms. They are with us, always. Never fraying.

Even in the face of death, Dr. King ensured that the hope kindling in the eyes of future generations wouldn’t be extinguished. It’s gratifying to know that one man sacrificed his life for the sake of children who hadn’t even been born.

People like you. People like me.

And that, I believe, is the most precious aspect of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream. It lives, it breathes, it evolves. And most important of all, it loves.

To end, Edna M. Hart once plainly said that “if I can help somebody along the way, then my living would not be in vain.” Dr. King disregarded his personal safety in favor of a civil outcry. He spoke for us in the musical language of equality and reform.

Open your ears, your eyes, and your heart, and you’ll hear the symphony’s echo.