Volume 14 , Issue 3

Duchess of Weaselskin

After midnight last night it started with a dusting of snow around the San Juans mountains in the southwest corner of Colorado. By Monday morning we had accumulated 4-3/4 inches of that dry, snow . . . snowing like that most of the day into early evening. They were predicting at least 6 inches for our area on Weatherbug.

Last week we were accused of living on the edge by sending our OkieLegacy Ezine out at a minute or so before midnight, Central Standard Time. If that is living on edge, then . . . laughing out loud . . . I guess we were living on the edge, but according to Mountain Time is was only one minute before eleven p.m.

It is also a holiday with the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day! What does it mean to you? This federal holiday honoring the non-violent civil rights leader is observed on the 3rd Monday in January. It took a petition of six million names submitted to Congress after it was stalled in congress, where it was first introduced as legislation for a commemorative holiday four days after King was assassinated in 1968.

Congress John Conyers, Democrat from Michigan introduced this legislation along with Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Democrat of New York, resubmitted King holiday legislation each subsequent legislative session. Public pressure for the holiday mounted during the 1982 and 1983 civil rights marches in Washington.

Congress finally passed the holiday legislation in 1983, which was then signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. Many states resisted celebrating the holiday. Opponents said King did not deserve his own holiday, contending that the entire civil rights movement rather than one individual, should be honored. Arizona approved the holiday in 1992 after a tourist boycott. New Hampshire changed the name of Civil Rights Day to Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Illinois was the first state to adopt MLK Day as a state holiday in 1973.

It was Martin Luther King's non-violent movement against segregation and injustice in the American south that owes much to King's visionary and inspirational eloquence. While jailed for leading anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, King wrote a letter arguing that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws.

The march of 28 August 1963, on Washington took place in Washington, DC, and was attended by 250,000 people. King's speech at the march remains one of the most famous speeches in American history. King started with prepared remarks but then departed from his script, shifting into the "I have a dream" theme he'd used on prior occasions, speaking of an America where his children "will not be judged by the color of their using but by the content of their character." He followed this with an exhortation to "let freedom ring" across the nation, and concluded with:

"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. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today."

This is also this Duchess' dream and what Martin Luther King,Jr., Day means to me!

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