Today is actually Martin Luther King’s birthday. (No, it’s not next Monday.  That’s just the convenient choice the government makes to provide a 3 day weekend.)  Had he not been murdered (and, of course, still alive), he would be 90 today.

Two years ago, i joined about 149 of my fellow congregants  traipsing about Selma, Alabama.  Our goal was to recreate for ourselves and our children an event that happened 55 years ago.  The March from Selma to Montgomery.

With tremendous awe, we realized we were walking in the shoes of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Reverend James Reeb, Joanne Bland, and a slew of others.  We also recreated  Rosa Parks’ abbreviated bus ride in Montgomery.  Morosely, I felt the pain of four young children murdered by an American terrorist at the 16^th Street Baptist Church.  Because we spent our weekend in all of these locations.

That trip helped me finally understand the part of registering Blacks to vote in Nashville, Tennessee played in the grand scheme of things.  Those efforts complemented other college students’ work to change the process in the cities of Farmville (VA), Greensboro (NC), Charleston (SC), Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma (AL), Albany (GA), Little Rock (AR), and New Orleans (LA).

Given the pervasive racism (not to mention rampant anti-Semitism) that is overtaking our great nation (starting with TheDonald- with his acceptance of neoNazi marches in Charlottesville (Virginia) and his rampant deprecation of Blacks and Hispanics (including his “Shithole Countries” characterization), it’s time we all reflect on the lessons that should have been learned- and sealed- by the example of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s life.

You can see the effects that our recreated march had on the adults and the children – our observations have been enshrined in print.  

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