By: Larry Chambers

Larry Chambers — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 21:37:23 +0000

I am a Caucasian American born in 1961, who, growing up in the South during the era of civil rights activism and national television coverage, witnessed public segregation even at the doctor’s office. As an unprejudiced child I was confused by the inequalities (something I experienced first hand in education during school bussing with outdated schoolbook and dilapidated school buildings.) I was encouraged by civil rights legislation and equally disturbed by the murders, assassinations and subsequent race riots. Like so many others I came to rely on a higher power while the greater society grew increasingly indifferent to inequities and grossly disobedient to the rule of law (something we readily excuse as American individualism.)
We can be free AND compassionate. It saddens me to witness continuing indifference to the plight of others, an attitude we collectively, but ephemerally, suspended at the advent of 9/11, only to revert back to shortly thereafter. Will we never spiritually embrace our neighbor fully? I have seen Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a day of service but now more than ever it needs to return to its roots of reform and reconciliation. Let us not “whitewash” the Observance until it no longer recognizes racial injustice. Doctor King would be disappointed in our failure to love one another. Continue to serve but do so in the spirit of love and concern being aware there are still enormous divides in our society that need to be bridged if we ever hope to fully realize King’s vision and fulfill the promise of our great nation to ourselves and others.

Comments on: Martin Luther King Jr. Day

By: Larry Chambers