Martin Luther King Jr.

Recently, I watched the movie, "Selma" about the march from Selma, to Montgomery, Alabama in support of the civil rights movement in 1965.

As I watched the movie, I realized that 1965 seems a really long time ago. Much of the footage we see of that time period is in black and white. However, what made it seem longer than the 50 years which have passed since that march was the treatment of human beings who opposed equal rights for all Americans.

I noticed the people who were marching for civil rights were carrying the American flag. A flag of a country which opposed them from being equal to others, yet they carried that flag. These people marching were opposed with people not carrying the stars and stripes, but the battle flag of the Confederacy. The streets were littered with white people opposing the voting rights to Blacks already guaranteed by the same constitution, which grants the same freedoms to each and every citizen in the United States. One hundred years, an entire century after President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves forever, Blacks were still struggling to enforce their rights, and the white people who opposed them. How sad that 50 years ago, people were simply on the wrong side of history and they didn't know it. Or, if they knew it, they didn't care.

Now 50 years later, it seems completely crazy that people didn't have those same rights. We could never understand why the colour of one's skin could deny a citizen of the country to be denied their inalienable rights.

Yet, the same conversation stands for many. Gay rights, Women's rights, Native rights, and the list goes on and on. When will the citizens who elect the governments who represent them stand together and give human beings the same rights and privileges as outlined by the nation they live in?
And when will human beings grant others the same right to live their lives in the Freedom that so many people have died to defend?

As today is April 4, I thought I would bring this up. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on this day in 1968. Dr. King stood for the equality of all human beings, in peaceful demonstrations. His courage raised awareness for the equality of all people, not just Blacks but for the entire civil rights movement. To watch the ignorance of people oppose that concept is just ludicrous to me, and yet as I write this, it probably happens to people I know, every day.

We as human beings are all one. We come in various colours, shapes, sizes, genders, sexuality, and beliefs. Yet, we are all souls born inside of a body we did not choose. We are souls having a human experience, treating one another as if we really were the costume that we were born into. But to judge a person solely on their costume, is to ignore the beauty of the soul inside of it.

To where you are, Martin Luther King Jr.