Celebration recently at the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church-Atlanta, GA as America approached Martin Luther King Day National Observance Monday January 16, 2023.
     As we celebrate MLK week in addition to ceremonies in American cities nationwide, there is a wonderful website with information on this year’s events including an awards gathering and also how to pick up the historic MLK historic trail in Atlanta as well.
     Visit .
     Of special interest is the long-running exhibit at "Concourse" E Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport featuring a wonderfully personal King Exhibit lovingly curated, celebrating the life and times of the great man and the movement to freedom that he led for all of us.
     Getting stuck at the airport is often an interminable experience. It’s enough to pass through the welter of airport security, the COVID friction, losing shoes and sometimes dignity, only to find oneself with few options, aside the wait.
     The stars look very different, stepping back a bit and immersing oneself for a pause in the day’s occupations focused on a man who changed the face of America. Since the mid-1980s, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport has hosted the exhibit at Concourse E honoring Dr. King.
     Titled Legacy of a Dream . . . Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the exhibit features—among other things—imagery from the famous Montgomery bus boycott, which launched a series of boycotts throughout the southern United States, fueling the Civil Rights Movement in America.
     Provided by the nonprofit King Center, formed in 1968 by Mrs. Coretta Scott King to memorialize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and educate future generations about his contributions, the Legacy of a Dream exhibit at Concourse E is steeped in history. The permit for Dr. King’s March on Washington and a photo of President Ronald Reagan declaring MLK Day as a national holiday are also on display, as well as the suit Dr. King wore to his meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson. It’s personal as well, with touches of the human throughout: visitors can see objects like Dr. King’s glasses and wristwatch, and the transistor radio that accompanied him on rallies and allowed him to listen to the news on the go. There are also family photos—Dr. King playing football with his sons, and images of his family at dinner together. Viewers will feel the exaltation of his greatest deeds while also glimpsing the pedestrian activities in which we all partake—a trip up to the firmament of change, and then back down to the grounded and familial.
Geoffrey Arend