To all,

Welcome to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a national celebration of one of America’s most inspiring leaders, a true example of man’s never-ending fight for justice, equality, and freedom.

This weekend we all share a piece of history together. Maybe to some the fact that Monday is a holiday is reason enough to celebrate; for some in the news broadcasting business it is a test as to whether or not they can accurately pronounce Dr. King’s name or make a public Freudian slip to an all too common derogatory phrase. To others, this weekend is a check on our individual–and our country’s–progress in the civil rights movement.

For me–among other things–it is a reminder of work that remains in the cause for diversity and inclusion in the St. Louis design and construction marketplace. Great progress has been made in recent years, but is it lasting progress? Have we as people satisfied Dr. King’s dream? Are we to a point where we can quit devoting time to the issue of civil rights and call our past actions a resounding success?

In 1963, Dr. King spoke to an enthusiastic “March on Washington” crowd in Washington, DC, and he starts:

“Five score years ago a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree is a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But 100 years later the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.”

That was 1963, the year I graduated from high school; the year I climbed aboard a Greyhound bus headed for Jackson, S.C., for eight weeks of U.S. Army basic training; a time of great movement in civil rights in this country; the year that John Kennedy was assassinated.

This is 2019, 56 years after the “March on Washington” and Dr. King’s speech; the year we are still doing diversity studies in our industry; the year that we still have to have rules, ordinances, and board bills to assure that minorities have access to the major commercial jobsites in our city; 156 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation–that “momentous decree” that was to be “…a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.”

I was an impressionable kid in 1963 eager to take on the world. The civil rights movement was huge for me; I hung on every word of Dr. King’s speech. I regard it as one of the greatest inspirational speeches ever given. I keep a copy of the speech at my home. I was too naive to truly understand the injustices that Dr. King spoke about; at that time, I did not even know they existed. I was able to ignore that side of American history as well as anyone. His speech changed me, though; Dr. King and John Kennedy woke me up; Peter, Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan, and the great folksingers of the ’60s kept me awake and kept me thinking; the racial riots of the late ’60s had me scared and told me the “dream” was still a dream; and the combination of all still have me fighting for justice and freedom today for all mankind. Personally, I have never understood just how anyone could think differently as to justice and equality “for all of God’s children.”

“Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality–1963 is not an end but a beginning.”

I often wonder how Dr. King would feel if he were alive today revisiting his famous words 56 years after declaring 1963 “a beginning.“ I am sure he would be proud in some ways, discontented in others. One thing for sure, he would still be fighting for that “dream”–he would not be resting.

“When we allow freedom to ring–when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.”

Brad McMillan was a talented illustrator and cartoonist that penned the cartoon below for the Dallas Weekly in 1988. I suppose Brad knew the answer to the question he raised in the illustration as he drew the inquisitive faces of the innocent children asking their father a rather simple question. Brad, the late father of Cat McMillan, illustrated and drew cartoons for the Memphis newspaper for years following his time in Dallas. His incredible body of work was recently displayed in a comprehensive exhibit on Cherokee Street by his daughter. Cat is the wife of my nephew Chris Mrozewski of V Three Studios, a successful up-and-coming architecture firm in our industry. With Cat’s permission, I am honored to share this illustration with my PEOPLE followers. I love Brad’s work and this piece jumped off the wall at me when I visited the exhibit.

At my five-year anniversary PEOPLE meeting to be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 12, at Hillsdale Fabricators, 2150 Kienlen Avenue, I will have professionally printed copies for those who want one for their own personal files.

Brad’s question, raised in 1988, reminds us that the true answer is “…all of God’s children.” There is no one man that can solve the issues of justice and equality for “all of God’s children.”

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyone. I hope to see you at the five-year anniversary PEOPLE meeting.

PEOPLE