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Don't ignore Martin Luther King Day Paul Ryan
 How important is a holiday? We have many of them, but outside of popular ones like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and the Fourth of July, people don't really celebrate holidays. However, there are some quieter holidays that are well worth celebrating. If you went back in time to this day in 1968, less than three months before the death of Martin Luther King Jr, and explained our holiday named for him, you'd probably get a strong response. If you explained how most people in our age treat the holiday like a normal work day, ungrateful and uncaring, they'd probably shake their heads and wonder. For people living in the 1960s, proof of King's importance was everywhere. Newspapers were filled with stories of protests, racial hardship, and violence. Television and radio newscasts showed the same. Those who look at the northern and southern states today and see a big rift are seeing nothing compared to 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed. The whole country suffered for the sake of creating a better America, but how do we recognize it today? We get up, go to work, grumble to our co-workers about the cold weather, and return home at the end of the day without even noticing the differences around us. Our public schools will remind children on Jan. 17, but who will remind our adults? If there's one thing most normal people like you and me need, it's inspiration. The routine of daily life gets old without new inspiration, and those in need of it need to look no further than King's speeches. A few years ago, I downloaded an audio file of one of King's speeches from the internet. My textbooks in school had always taught me what a powerful man he was, but it wasn't until I heard him speak - not just the short "I have a dream" soundbite, but the rise and fall of his voice through an entire speech - that I really took notice. The 40-year-old audio recording absolutely floored me. As far as I was concerned, King could have delivered a speech about the importance of cottage cheese, and I probably would have bought a case of it. Call me a sappy liberal, but every year since I found that audio file, I've listened to it on Martin Luther King Day. It rings through the halls of my apartment as I shave and drink my cup of caffeine, and King's voice stays in my head all day. Once you hear him say something, it becomes hard to forget. That's the way he spoke, and it's the effect he has even today, over 35 years later. I would encourage everyone to take a few minutes to read or listen to one of King's speeches. Something more than the two-minute blurbs the media brings you on this holiday. I've included the full audio file here. Even if the content isn't modern, the inspiration in his voice is still clear.
(16:13, 1.86 MB)
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