Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. You had a dream. A dream that, after all we have been through these last few years, I would still love to see realized. And that’s regardless of how much damage has been caused around the world, let alone in America. Paranoia is getting worse and worse, and ignorance continues to be utter bliss for those in power.

Where is the America you dreamed of? Why does it always seem so far, far away? Your vision is one which needs to be embraced, and yet the world seems to keep descending into an endless abyss which it looks unlikely to escape from. Yet we celebrate your life because you had a dream and none of us, however depressed and demoralized we get, are ever willing to let it die.

You were willing to live and die for what you believed in, and this is the kind of bravery we sure could use today. We have been scared to speak our minds of the truth we are trapped in, and when we do speak it we are not heard by those in charge. People are still judged by the color of their skin even when we try to convince ourselves this should never be the case. The powerful voices of truth keep getting muffled by the powers that be, and it usually takes some illegal activity to get to the facts, facts which are now more malleable and less permanent than ever before.

Where is your dream, Dr. King? I guess that’s what I want to write about. I want to believe it is still possible that we can all be free at last. I just don’t know. The world keeps getting scarier and scarier, and I keep hiding away from it all. It gets to be too much sometimes, but it never did scare you, did it? So, who am I to complain?

Whatever happens and whatever befalls us, you will never be forgotten. Thanks Dr. King, and not just for the day off from work (that’s a coincidence more than anything else). Thanks for being a brave voice in a scary world which you refused to be intimidated by. Thanks for your dream which will never die. Ever. Thanks for remembering the most important of things, that we need to work together even when life seems to be bringing us all down.

Happy Birthday Dr. King. May your dreams be realized.

Above image courtesy of Getty Images.