Today we solemnly celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I was a student in 1963 when Dr. King made his famous I have a dream speech, highlighted by; “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. It resonated in me then and still does to this day.

At that time, I lived in the small suburban town of Ridgewood, NJ. I thought I lived in an integrated community. My school had black students attending and there was no racial strife. I didn’t pay any attention to the fact that all my black friends lived on Broad Street. Years later I realized that racist deed covenants prohibited blacks from living anywhere else in town. Even though the US Supreme Court in 1948 struck down restrictive deed covenants, it wasn’t until 4 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act that the Fair Housing Act put teeth in the law that was signed by President Johnson on April 11, 1968. Dr. King was assassinated days earlier on April 4, 1968.

We have made great strides in racial equality since Dr. King so bravely led the civil rights movement, yet racial tensions still exist. There are some in America that use racial division for political gain. An example is the ideology of Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT) that unfairly divides people by race. Equality is replaced with the misleading term “equity”.

Many school districts throughout the country, including here in Arizona, incorporate CRT in school curriculum. Our federal government is leading the charge with CRT by forcing it on federal workers, federal contractors and our military. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs’ first executive order, “Protecting Employment Opportunity” reeks of CRT.

Our country’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

Our founding fathers understood it is God’s will that “all men are created equal”. God looks at all of us as equals to each other. It’s our job to put those words of equality in our hearts and make the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. come true.