In addition to honoring a remarkable man, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has special meaning for me:  It was the day we buried my mother.

For several years following her death, my annual Christmas card included a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote signed with the simple words ‘Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men.”  Words I felt that we, as a Country, had lost the understanding and compassion for.

I’d like to share an excerpt in remembrance––

Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.

I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies; education and culture for their minds; and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.

I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up.

                                        I still believe that we shall overcome.

                                                                                      Martin Luther King, Jr.