My thoughts on MLK day

January 20, 2025

Last spring I visited our nation’s capital, as the cherry blossoms were in bloom. And if there’s a better time to be there, I don’t know when it might be. If you know, you know and if you don’t know, you should find out. And I mean that.

But a visit to the King memorial, on a brilliant sunny day, was the highlight of the trip. It brought home to me, in a way I otherwise would not have appreciated, that the location of the memorial along the Tidal Basin is as important as the fact that it exists in the first place. I have to believe that the sightlines to the Jefferson Memorial were not accidental, either.

I was insipred in such a way that I had to capture first on paper, and then in the visual realm, the juxtaposition of the two monuments, across a large expanse of water but still, at least to me, undeniably in silent tension with each other. Jefferson’s fine house and neo-classical architecture could not exist without the subjugation and dehumanization of people with the misfortune, in his eyes, to be born black. And King is staring in his direction, as if to remind us all in perpetuity of the hypocrisy of Jefferson’s words.

I’ve shared this far and wide on social media today, as an antidote for whatever else might be taking place in that city. The revelers there—who were denied entry into the proverbial Room Where It Happens—wouldn’t appreciate the point, anyway. They got what they wanted, even if the powers that they helped to install have decided they weren’t worthy of witnessing it. But the irony, and the significance, of recognizing Dr. King on the very same day is our duty as Americans, and I’m honored to be able to take part in it, in whatever way that I can.