
One of my classmates at Morehouse, Dr. King's undergraduate alma mater, posted the following status update to his Facebook profile: "Martin Luther King, Jr. was 25 years old when he helped organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In his honor, tonight, most 25 year olds in Atlanta will be "turnt up" in the club because they get the day off tomorrow...living the dream." My friend has a good point, and I took his statement to mean we aren't obligated to do exactly what Dr. King did, but it'd sure be nice if we honored his hard work in ways other than nursing a hangover or getting drunker than normal for a Monday.
I must say it's nice to work at a place that respects the outcome of what MLK did. I'll never forget the feeling of discovering that another company expected me to get over it, and I have at least one friend who has quit his job over his boss saying in an apparently disrespectful manner (or at least that's how it was taken) that the company wouldn't be taking the day off. Funny thing is, said company caters specifically to the black community, although the boss is not black in the slightest. I won't name names, but some of you swore by her magazine for years, even though in all honesty (and with no disrespect to my friends who've worked there) the magazine to me was glossy toilet paper made by someone who clearly couldn't care less about her audience, otherwise the quality and depth of the magazine would have been greater. Hey, I guess if they eat chitlins, feed them.
Some of us are sitting at home right now. Others of us are on the job as usual. All of us, at least today, should be doing type of work towards supporting the push for civil rights that continues in all parts of the world.
For ideas of how you can do something good today to honor Dr. King, look here.