MLK Day

I love MLK Day, not only because of the the great admiration I have for Martin Luther King Jr., but because it always takes me down memory lane to my teaching years in South Chicago - where racial issues, discrimination, and black poverty are not quite a thing of the past. And where Martin Luther King Day is one of the most celebrated holidays in inner-city schools.

This is the after-school orchestra I started, right after Clayton was born, with the help of a VH1 Save the Music grant.
(hmmm, I sort of miss that short haircut)The kids loved dressing up in my African costumes for Reader's Theater. (I was pregnant with Isaac in this picture.)I was very flattered to receive this family portrait by one of my students. You can see why. . .
"God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land."
- excerpt from "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (the Black National Anthem)
by James Weldon Johnson