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I'm usually participating in a volunteer event on King day, but that's because I have been living in Atlanta, where King day is one of the largest days of community service all year. Hands On Atlanta (charity networking volunteers with projects/non-profits) organizes hundreds of projects, and a service summit at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood. Two years ago, Corretta Scott King spoke, and Bono made an appearance as well. I presented a workshop at that years service summit on the model I was using to leverage a small amount of Community Development Block Grant money and a titanic quantitiy of volunteers to perform no-cost critical home repairs for low-income, elderly and/or disabled homeowners in Atlanta's inner city.
This year, I'm driving up to Maine for a little R&R. I'm off every monday, so it's not really different than any other time. Too cold for outdoor service projects up here.
One of the things that I really like about King's story is that he was a normal, flawed human. He slept around a bit. He had some inconsistencies. But, his committment to non-violent social change inspired a great many, and quite possibly assisted our nation in avoiding a devastating series of domestic armed conflicts. It's a shame that idiots have to focus on the color of his skin to discount his importance. He spoke words for us all. Hell, most of his stuff is pretty religious in overtone too, and I'm anything but Christian. This holiday is one of few that should actually matter to Americans.
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