Today in Denver, dramatical temperature drop to freezing below zero in Fahrenheit, obviously offers a good reason to thank MLK for a day off staying home.

For many times as students, we remember it more as a holiday, the Monday off-day before Spring semester starts, than its historical meaning. Martin Luther King Jr. fought for his whole life but never anticipated that what he won for his people is a holiday in his name at the date of his birth.

How many people still remember his original ambition, and how many would even bother to check for it in Wikipedia? Hopefully it’s not just these hundreds of people, “Hundreds March in bitter cold at annual MLK Jr. Day Marade in Denver”. (https://denvergazette.com/news/local/denver-2025-mlk-day-marade/article_e1262ef4-d77f-11ef-8f2a-67d92a6bc36d.html)

On this MLK’s day, the media coverage has been dominated by the inauguration of D. Trump as the 47th president of US. I honor those hundreds of people for their stubbornness in believing in MLK’s mission, which started from his young age but never ceased though being beaten countless times in all the movements he organized. It got stronger with one after another success starting from Montgomery Bus Boycott, a 381-day campaign after which Rosa Parks finally was able to take the seat she wanted on a bus (Dec. 5, 1955 – Dec. 20, 1956). It’s hard to envision the US today if the assassination never happened, but it is obvious that people nowadays are still dreaming of his dream after it was put to a force pause on April 4,1968 by a single bullet, in one of the four assassinations in the 60s (John F. Kenny in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, MLK on April 4,1968 and Robert F. Kenny in June 1968).

At this date, a day for memorial not a holiday to celebrate, let’s have MLK’s dream again, which, after over half a century, still stays as a dream. Did the new president think of MLK for a moment, and his vision of the United States of America, when re-entering the oval office?