Reflection on MLK Day

Celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr have taken many forms over my lifetime. I started high school only four years after Dr. King's assassination. So in those days, before a formal national holiday, celebrations took the form of watching and reliving his famous "I Have a Dream" speech and singing songs of solidarity and hope.
 
But what resonates most for me is a clear memory from my childhood of watching civil rights marches on TV, peaceful sit-ins, and horrifying images of violence. Our nation had been rocked by various forms of upheaval and loss during that time. We reeled and lurched as we struggled with the type of disruption that occurs when there is conflict between maintaining the status quo and dismantling broad and systemic inequities. I have a specific memory from the '60s of my father taking me to a church in Indianapolis, my hometown, to see long lines of civil rights marchers load busses for a march in Washington, D.C. We did not know, then, that that march would become one of the hallmarks of civil rights around the world. It was late at night, noisy, and smoke from the bus exhaust sat heavy in the air. My father and I watched in silence as one bus after another pulled away and headed for Washington DC, uncertain about what awaited them. As we drove back home, my father said we did a good and important thing that night by supporting those courageous people who were representing America by fighting for the rights of all people. There was much to think about, and we drove the rest of the way home in silence.
 
As I think about the world that Hawken Middle School students are experiencing today, I consider Hawken's eighth Principle: We appreciate difference and individuality and embrace diversity in our community. We work to offer the members of our community time and space to add their voices to a constructive dialogue about civility. We explicitly acknowledge the need to honor and support one another's experience and identity, even if we are not always sure how to make that happen. We remind ourselves that we all have blind spots and work to ensure that those biases do not inadvertently marginalize our students' and colleagues' experiences. 
 
Much has changed since that memorable car ride with my father in the '60s. And although significant challenges remain, I have hope and confidence that within the imperfect and complicated world in which we live, we will strive for kindness and full acceptance of one another. We will lean into gratitude and engage with one another with humility, compassion, and acceptance. 
 
Sometimes this work is easy, and sometimes it tugs and pokes and pulls at us in ways that are unsettling. Either way, it is incumbent upon us, each of us, to move forward and continue to challenge ourselves to listen, learn, examine where we stand, and always value one another.