Martin Luther King Day

I don’t think I will need to write a whole paragraph on why Martin Luther King Day is important to me, because if you have history books or pay attention to our history and care about our culture, then it would be obvious how he played an important part in our lives- even til this day. Some of you may not recognize him as an important model in our history but the man was, and he deserves respect for being able to endure the kind of hatred, violence, and racism that many of us have never came close to having to endure in own life time. For those of you who are not aware, my family is very mult-racial and back in his time that would be considered highly UNACCEPTABLE, that would be something to get a black women or black man killed, and put a white man or his family in danger of even thinking about wanting to get with my race. It was tough times back them and even though racism still thrives during this time, we have still come a lot further than we used to be. 

I live in a predominantly white town (mostly upper class) citizens and I have lived here all my life besides the 7 years I was living in different states. I have had to endure racism and ignorance growing up until my adult age now, just in this town alone and from my own race and also other races. It is scary to think that someone can hate you for the skin you are in, but if anyone has ever had someone make light of their differences due to color, it hurts because you don’t understand how one can make you feel inferior for something you didn’t choose but was born this way. I have a very strong family history, that I never realized until my adult years, because I didn’t really care as a teen or child — but now I see the steps my grandparents and great grandparents took to help me pave my own way in my own life and be proud of who I am no matter what others may think. 

Some of the things my family is known for doing is creating a street sign that says “Martin Luther King Blvd” in my town, of course it had to be approved by the state and city and of course it took some fighting I would assume, but because of them, in his honor they had it approved and still is a street sign for a bridge we have here in town. I consider that amazing, to be honest. We also built a library about black history for young people who need more information on our culture and history, I’d say that is a huge deal considering not many school’s history books hit every little detail. No offense. My family built that, in a town where the minority (which is me) is seriously a minority .. but I give them respect because I am sure someone hated to see it there, hated to know it was built on black culture, but guess what? it still stands! There are some other things they are known for, but what I am trying to get at is, because of them being proud of who they are no matter who was fighting against them, they were able to stay strong and do things that might have small meaning to most but for some of us, meant a whole lot.. ❤

I hope all of you have a wonderful Martin Luther King Day! 

Shay-lon 

My dream is to live in a world where being different is okay, not something we have to continue to fight for.. not something we have to be scared of, and not something that forces you to have insecurities.