Does MLK Day honor Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Yesterday, Michael Spencer posted five reasons he doesn’t like Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. He writes as an admirer of King, not a detractor, reflecting on reactions to the annual observance from African-Americans and from white Evangelicals. Spencer says that the observance has been treated as the exclusive possession of African-Americans, when it belongs to all Americans: My African-American students almost universally resent that we do not dismiss school in deference to “their” holiday. (If any holiday should be celebrated by GOING to school, this one should.) When we’ve been asked to have MLK programs, students protest if the program is not all African-American, and for African-Americans. Virtually every image of MLK, Jr. day on the media is dominated by African-Americans. It’s an American holiday. Dr. King said he wanted to see the day we stopped celebrating skin color and made up a community of love based on character. To make MLK, Jr. day an African-American holiday has the pot
