Today is an invitation to consider hard truths and inspiring possibilities.
Hard truths often have uncomfortable histories and complicated futures.
Truth.
Our collective national land was rapidly taken from indigenous peoples through force, relocation, and genocide.
Our shared economic foundation was steadily built with the hands of stolen humans shipped from continents far away. Prosperity today on loan from slavery yesterday.
Possibility.
It would be nearly 100 years between the end of slavery and the 1964 Civil Rights Act when an inspiring possibility was cemented into our now social DNA:
That inherent equality and coherent treatment ought not to be tied to one's race, color, religion, sex, origin, orientation, or identity.
The possibility, as Dr. King embodied, was that all humans could be free.
Today asks that we take note of where we have been, but move toward where we have yet to arrive—a communal table where your individual freedom is only as great as our collective liberation.
When your neighbor is educated, we are wiser. When strangers have healthcare, we are healthier. A job down the road is wealth right in your home. Racial justice over there is safety right in here. LGBTQ acceptance outside is self-love inside.
Them is us is we is you is me is free.