Linda Leigh Hargrove,
Concord, NC.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the Lincoln Memorial and made a game-changing speech. More than 250,000 people stood in the audience that August day, including Rosa Parks who sat her way into civil rights history. It is because of their work that I have the freedom, as a black woman, to work, live, and eat wherever I want. Full equality have yet to be realized, though. We are still in this game, this fight for the level equality that they only dreamed of. I believe the solution lies in not only our ability to stand and sit for equality. I believe it is in our ability to talk to one another in mutual respect and sensitivity. To commit to talk until real equality is realized–the kind that creates a reality in which a black mother will not have to tell her sons to be afraid of white men. I’m not sure this will happen in my lifetime but I can dream.