Another Medium post—with the ‘friends’ link, i.e. it’s free.

Evans’ Rag

Vol 3 Issue 3

The exterior shots of the Silver Spring Library are still coming, but this week’s blog has been waiting since Christmas.

I’m writing this on Martin Luther King Day. Martin Luther King was born the son of a preacher who in turn preached the Gospel to his flock first in Georgia, spread to the country, then to the world.

In two days, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn into office. A white boy from one coast and a black girl from the other. With a past Black president and his beautiful Black wife in attendance. Martin got to be smiling.

For a long time I’ve felt it remarkable that the Black men and women in America–when still enchained–found their way to the religion of their enslavers. How could they adopt the beliefs of such hatred-filled others? Yet in their grace, they did. And their offspring embraced it as integral to their survival on the planet. MLK might say they were spoken to by God, but I disagree: they spoke to God. 

And I think about the Blacks that have served this country through our wars, dying same as Whites, sometimes dying in their stead. Like the Native Americans, the Latino Americans, Asian Americans... We all hope the same. Some get lost and some go crazy, but we all hope the same. 

Martin Luther King gave this country its moral backbone–or showed us what had been missing, the love for all this vast land’s people.