Quotation Challenge, Day 1–On the Occasion of an Impending Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Dear Lily June,

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a paragon of virtue, a human pantheon of knowledge and a crusader for social justice. He was also just a man, a human being like anyone else who believed in change, who devoted his life to working toward it, and as such, he serves as an example to all that we, too, can make a difference in our lifetimes. That he was shot and murdered, assassinated in the prime of his work towards racial equality, means that we must continue to work, in his absence, toward making his dream our reality.

There is much to say about this man and his legacy in America, especially in light of recent events. Your mother, though, as a white woman, is not the one to say it. I’m going to take this opportunity, then, to take up the quotation challenge issued to me many months ago by pennyforyourthotsblog (hi, Penny! And thanks!) and to share words on race and racism in America which haunt and inspire and provoke and enlighten in equal measures. I will spend the next three days posting the words of people of color, but on Monday, I will not post anything, in order to create a moment of silence for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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“We must not pretend that the countless people who are targeted by police are ‘isolated.’ They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but.”

~Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomeyer (America’s first Latinx justice, and first justice of Hispanic origins)

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For this challenge, I nominate Orchidblue’s Blog, wordskeepmesane, and not throwing stones to post three consecutive days worth of quotations, but I add the additional option: That if you wish, you should attempt to post and promote the words of someone who does not share your race, ethnicity, skin color, religion, gender, sex, and/or sexual orientation.

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Picture Credits:

• By Haplochromis – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6206121