Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 2: Living the Dream

This is the second in a daily series celebrating the blessings I'm thankful for, leading up to Thanksgiving. While they will portray some of the many -- and random -- things I have to be thankful for, they will not be presented in any particular order by degree of thankfulness. Skewed priorities should not be implied.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, 

the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners 

will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood...

...I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation 

where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I like to believe that when Martin Luther King, Jr. said these famous words, he also dreamed of this:

A family undefined by genetics and unbound by color. A family instead defined by love and bound by a heritage of character, blurring the lines of race.

The descendants of slave owners and slaves sitting down together at a table as true brother and sisters, albeit Michigan.

I'm so thankful for those who sacrificed and worked so hard to end racial segregation. They spent long years and decades chipping away at the racial injustice and ignorance that once enslaved people, gave inferior educations, provided separate restrooms and drinking fountains, and forced many to forfeit their seats on the bus for no reason beyond the color of their skin.

My family on the "Rosa Parks" bus

Because of many who have followed in their efforts and thousands who disregarded race as they built their families, my family is not an anomaly. Wherever I go, I see families like mine. White, Black, Asian, Hispanic all mixed up in happy jumbles called families.

I'm so thankful to be among them, living the dream every day.


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