Dr. King

Before I was a Mom, I was a teacher.

Sometimes it feels like it was a million years ago.

My favorite teaching job was in the inner city.

I taught in an impoverished, primarily black area,

for four years before we adopted our kids.

I had learned of Dr. King and the civil rights movement, but

until my face was the only white face in a sea of black children,

families, people, I never understood the impact of the civil rights.

Until I saw the pride on my teaching assistant's face as

she spoke of Dr. King and the opportunities he gave, I never

realized how lucky I was and what a sacrifice he, and so many others, made.

It was at that job that I realized the beauty of Dr. King's dream.

The beauty of people being judged by

"the content of their character, and not the color of their skin."

Dr. King made it possible for me, a white woman, to go into a black school

and teach.  Dr. King made it possible for the children

in my class to grow up to be anything.

Most importantly, Dr. King and all of the people that

fought for civil rights, made it possible for me to adopt two 

African American children.

Two children whose skin is a different color than mine.

It is with joy that I think of Dr. King on his birthday. I think of his sacrifice

and the sacrifice of all of those men and women that fought

so that we, people of different colors, could become a family.