Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a special holiday that reflects the Civil Rights movement, and how King fought for the freedom of black people to do the same things as everyone else in America. This holiday is celebrated throughout the nation, where everyone appreciates everything that MLK has done to get us to the future we’re in today.
The majority of schools across the country stay home from school on this holiday to celebrate MLK’s great accomplishments. Unfortunately, here at Spring Lake High School, we don’t take this day off on this special occasion.
To get my thoughts out there, I believe that we should not have school on this holiday. No, it’s not just because I want to have more days off from school, but it’s for the simple fact that nearly every other school in the country has this day off. I think it’s important to practice our citizenship on this day and to not take other people for granted. Martin Luther King would’ve wanted this kind of act coming from everyone across the world.
I also think that the way we celebrate this holiday in school is not useful. Personally I’ve never enjoyed the way we show appreciation for MLK Day in school. I feel that listening to the same speech every year doesn’t really teach us anything new. I wish that our school would go more in depth about this holiday and the struggles people during the Civil Rights movement went through. Repeating this same tradition is not getting us anywhere when it comes to our knowledge on this holiday.
I think we should celebrate this holiday outside of school by not only doing kind acts of service for everyone, which is something people should be doing either way, but instead showing appreciation for our friends and loved ones and especially MLK. This is simply because MLK made it possible for all colors to be together in our nation and to love one another. He wished love for all of the brothers and sisters in our country. Our world, even.
MLK said in his speech, “I have a dream that my four 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’s important that we all show our appreciation for everyone that we love and care about in this world. We should all skip out on school on this day to show our great appreciation for our friends, family and other loved ones. The reason we love them is because of the content of their character.
To wrap this all up, we should have the day off on this holiday to show our gratitude for not only the people we love, but for the man that made our future for people of all colors bright and optimistic. I thank Martin Luther King Jr. for giving me and the whole world a future full of freedom.
