{"id":1363,"date":"2008-01-22T16:50:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T21:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/hungerrumblings\/2008\/01\/22\/martin-luther-king-jr-day\/"},"modified":"2008-01-22T16:50:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T21:50:00","slug":"martin-luther-king-jr-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/martin-luther-king-jr-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther King Jr. Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family:verdana\">Did you observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this week? If so, what did you do? Do you have an annual ritual around it?<\/p>\n<p>To be entirely honest, its greatest significance to me has usually been that it\u2019s a day off of work. And mostly, it hasn\u2019t even been that. Some years, I\u2019ve barely registered that it\u2019s a holiday. But this year is different. I\u2019d like to say the change is due to some great personal awakening, but mostly it\u2019s because of my job. By its nature, working to end world hunger requires daily recognition of social injustice. A side effect of my job that I both appreciate and resent is that it\u2019s been impossible to work in this environment and NOT become more aware of inequality and my role in it.<\/p>\n<p>Did you know that Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of only four individuals to have a U.S. federal holiday in his honor? (According to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.\">Wikipedia<\/a>. Points if you can name the other three without looking!) Some of the well-known actions that earned King such status include public speaking, writing, organizing others to stand behind the cause, and employing peaceful activism. His work laid the groundwork for permanent change in laws: the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Right Act. But before he got a holiday, he got jail time, FBI surveillance, a house bombing, and, of course, death.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:verdana\"><br \/>Which brings me back to my own observation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Clearly I\u2019m supposed to recognize the importance of this man. Should I try to be like him? I have absolutely no interest in going to jail or being watched by authorities. But I do have an interest in ending hunger. And ending hunger requires confronting injustice. And confronting injustice most likely requires me to speak out, write, and stand with others behind the cause \u2013 peacefully, of course. So this year, for me, the day was about honestly considering what I\u2019m able and willing to do to achieve social justice. I\u2019m not totally sure of the answer, and I\u2019m no Martin Luther King. But I can call a politician, write a letter to the editor, or donate money. Are things on this scale enough? I generally believe that something is better than nothing, and if everyone does a little, big changes are possible. But sometimes I wonder if I\u2019m only justifying my comfort zone. Still, this smaller, more personal scale of action is where I find myself right now. I\u2019ll work on building from here. And I\u2019ll continue to wonder if the more courageous of you are scoffing at me as you read this from your jail cell.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this week? If so, what did you do? Do you have an annual ritual around it? To be entirely honest, its greatest significance to me has usually been that it\u2019s a day off of work. And mostly, it hasn\u2019t even been that. Some years, I\u2019ve barely registered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,53,54],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post","tag-holidays","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-social-justice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Martin Luther King Jr. Day - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/martin-luther-king-jr-day\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Martin Luther King Jr. Day - ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Did you observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this week? If so, what did you do? Do you have an annual ritual around it? To be entirely honest, its greatest significance to me has usually been that it\u2019s a day off of work. And mostly, it hasn\u2019t even been that. 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