Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Holiday is a peculiar holiday.

I am at a loss on how to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday isn’t a traditional holiday that’s been celebrated the world over like Christmas.  It isn’t a Hallmark holiday like Sweetest Day encouraging people to give flowers & chocolates twice a year not just once on Valentines Day.   It's far more significant than these PR holidays that are popping up like National Bagel Day (Jan 15) that encourage consumers to consume a certain product.   And unlike other US holidays that could be classified as banking holiday it’s seems weirdly off pudding to celebrate the day with a 30% off mattress sale when three of Dr. King four children referenced in the “I have a dream” speech are still alive.  

Some say the best way to honor the legacy of Dr. King is devote the day to community service and help those who are less fortunate than you.  And that sounds like a great idea.  However, I’m sure Dr. King would be the 1^st to say community service and helping those in need should be a 365 day a year thing not just one day event.      

So, I was at a loss as to how to celebrate/honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. until I came up with an answer in January of 2016.  In December 2015 my cousin gave me the Hamilton soundtrack for Christmas.  I was curious since earlier in 2015 I also saw an interview Lin Manuel Miranda gave to CBS Sunday morning talking about how minority actors are bringing to life the WASPish heroes of the Revolutionary war.  I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack around Dr. King’s birthday that followed that Christmas, and I realized this was the perfect thing to do to celebrate what is the embodiment of Dr. King’s dream of judging someone by the content of their character  (well, performance as a character) rather than the color of their skin.  

Of course, this idea of listening or watching now Hamilton on Disney+ has a few harsh detractors and unfortunately for me I love these detractors very much.  A former local community actor I know snidely remarked “Hey they would never cast me (a white heterosexual cisgender male) to play Dr. King.”  My husband cringingly concurs stating that African American Christopher Jackson looks nothing like Washington at all and actors have to look the part to be accepted.   Now I love Christopher Jackson’s performance as George Washington and believe he embodies the spirit of George Washington if not the look.  Heck if I wasn’t a failed writer/had better connections in the TV industry I would be working on a kids’ TV show starring Mr. Jackson as George Washington explaining the US Constitution and perhaps other key decisions/historical events that shaped America today for PBS.   I accept all of the minority casting in all of the WASP roles of Hamilton because I know the important truths of live theater.

Truth #1- if you watch a play you suspend your normal system of belief for a few hours. Cats, the house pet cannot sing & dance like they do in "Cats" the musical.  Yet "Cats" the musical still remains one of the all time greatest blockbusters plays in Broadway history even though cat owners knows when get home little Fluffy will not break into a chorus of "Memory" before demanding to be fed.  

Truth #2- Actors are clearly pretending to be someone else not themselves.  Thebian Royalty didn’t play Oedipus at Athens’ Dionysus theater in 429 BC.  Shakespeare had no qualms of English actors portraying Italian merchants or Danish princes or even female heroines for that matter.  Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson et al has been dead for over 200 years and even if Lin Manuel Miranda were to hold a séance brining them back to life there’s no guarantee our founding fathers can dance, rap & sing as well as the cast of Hamilton.    So even if the play is featuring real life people, places, and events it’s STILL not the real place, people, or event. 

Truth #3- Hamilton is a hip hop musical.  And unlike rock & roll where 1950’s bigotry gave the fortune & fame of Chuck Berry to Elvis Presley; hip hop has retained its urban minority flair.   So, since the music is hip hop & rap it may come across as too strange to watch a white actor sing/rap the same songs Christopher Jackson sings in Hamilton as George Washington.  Then again maybe I’ve just uncovered some previously unconscious racism I have to overcome in myself by assuming a white actor couldn’t rap/sing soulfully the way Christopher Jackson sings.

Because the one thing I know everyone should be pondering today is the fact that over 400 years ago Africans were brutally kidnapped from Africa to be slaves with hundreds dying on the way and that was wrong.  It was equally wrong for so many in the southern United States to scapegoat the newly freed African slaves who were born & raised in the south just like they were for the righteous loss of their Confederate America in the Civil War with racist laws.   It was wrong for the KKK to disgustingly lynch hundreds of ordinary African Americans for even the most trivial crimes such as whistling at a white woman the way Emmet Till was.    Dr. King and other veterans of the Civil Rights movement had to do something to stop the asinine separate and unequal laws on the books to at least give the chance for someone like Barack Obama to become US  president,  Clarence Thomas to service as a justice on the US  supreme court,  Oprah Winfrey to become a media mogul, Kenneth Chenault to become CEO of American Express, Spike Lee to direct 35+  successful films & win an Oscar, Venus Williams to win several grand slam championships in tennis, 301 black students to be admitted to Harvard in 2022 and the Nobel prize for literature to Toni Morrison.    And yet, on this day the memories of George Floyd & Breonna Taylor still in the front of the public’s mind, the fact that African Americans still make up to 30% of the prison population even though they are 12% of the population overall.  Diseases such as Covid 19 are still disproportionately the African American community because of the fact that 19.5% of all African Americans are living behind the poverty line means no, we shouldn’t have a white actor portraying Dr. King ever. 

And yes, we all should be serving those in need on this day and doing what we can in our own small ways to continue to make Dr. King’s dream of a truly equal society come true.   Which means for me not wasting 2 hours of my time watching Hamilton on TV but bringing about that beautiful American dream which was wide enough to make room for a leadership hero like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream of equality for everyone in America.