Today is MLK Jr. Day, the Monday closest to his birthday when the kids don’t have school. A lot of times they go up to the mountains to have a snow day around here. This morning, Al was watching a film about the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life on his computer. I asked him why he was watching it and he told me that it helps him remember stuff about what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did. While it’s good that this holiday is recognized, I really make an effort to make sure that he (and Nat, Little A and Max) know that there were a whole lot of other people involved in the Civil Rights movement, like Fred Shuttlesworth, who died in October (I got to show him my blog post – go me – lol). We also talked about the work Dr. King was doing in Memphis when he was killed, and why the city had to be threatened with strikes after it agreed to fair wages and union recognition for its black sanitation workers and the mindsets that allowed Jim Crow (red-lining and its other reincarnations) to exist and thrive in our country. I just want my children to be able to say more about the struggle for justice in this country (that continues, btw) than “Martin Luther King ended segregation, Barack Obama became president and then we went sledding and snow boarding.”