[EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the same article I posed last year and the year before but I loved it so I'm reposting this year.]
Watch this video. It's not at all comfortable or easy to hear these words but it's powerful and important. My parents talk about how 1968 was such a horrible year to live through. I don't doubt that for a second but I look back at 1968 with utter awe. These people fought and died in the name of freedom. Maybe we haven't gotten to the dream's mountaintop but look how far we've come. I was only born five years later but into an entirely different country. I've never known a time without racial and religious freedom. Without bias and prejudice? Yeah. Without freedom? Absolutely not. My parents were raised in a time where it was common and acceptable practice to limit one's freedom to even choose their seat on a bus based on the color of their skin. But in my life I've never known my country to be even remotely that oppressive. I'm not oblivious. There's a country club down the street that wouldn't allow blacks, Jews or unmarried women to become members until I was in high school. That really sucks. But I honestly don't feel like my restriction to pay a membership which gives me the privilege to hang out with a bunch old men in plaid pants equates being beaten in the streets of Selma. So yeah, Dr. King secured a great deal of increased freedom for most of us. Proof? Two words: PRESIDENT OBAMA. That's a lotta freedom y'all. That said, we're not all free by any means. Our basic civil rights are violated when states legislate the prevention of same sex marriage. It's absolutely a civil right to marry who you choose. So maybe as a heterosexual my freedom isn't limited. Bobby Kennedy's freedom wasn't limited because he was a white man but he still died in the fight for racial equal rights. We all must speak up because if we don't then we can't depend on other people speaking up for us when our freedom is in jeopardy. This civil rights barrier will soon be broken as well because of the longevity of Dr. King's message. Deep in my heart, I do believe.
