Today is Martin Luther King Day.  I can actually remember the first year it became a holiday.  Looking it up really quickly right now I see that happened in 1986, which feels about right.  I didn't know who he was at the time, which to me represents a bit of a failing in our public schools.  I remember that up until then we celebrated Columbus Day in October and Martin Luther King Day ended up replacing it.  I definitely knew all about Christopher Columbus from school and even remember the rhyme about in fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue.  I even remember the  names of his ships: the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

I've got to say now that I've learned more history Martin Luther King is way, way more deserving of having a holiday in his honor than Christopher Columbus is.  We were taught as kids that Columbus "discovered" America.  But he didn't discover anything.  First of all, there were already people here.  Secondly, he never even landed on mainland North America, but rather an island in the Bahamas.  Thirdly, he didn't even know he was in a supposedly undiscovered country.  He thought he was in East Asia.  On top of that his treatment of the Indigenous people was horrifying.  He basically enslaved and murdered them on a large scale.  This isn't a guy who should be celebrated.  Seriously, screw Christopher Columbus.

On the other hand Martin Luther King was instrumental in the Civil Rights movement in this country.  His "I Have a Dream" speech is deservedly iconic and will likely be remembered for however long there is an America.  The country is a better place for him having been here and it's sad to think about what more he could have accomplished if he hadn't been assassinated in 1968 at only 39 years old.  It's crazy to realize that having been born in 1929, he could theoretically still be alive today.  After all, Barbara Walters was born the same year and she's still around.  It just feels like he's a historical figure.  Crazily enough, Anne Frank was also born in 1929, and she seems like she's from a different era than either of them.   It's definitely hard to imagine the three of them being contemporaries, let alone the same age.  And the fact that King and Frank could still be here if they hadn't been murdered is also a little mind blowing.

Anyway, just want to take a moment today to say "Thanks, Dr. King.  May your dream someday be realized."