When I think about what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day means to me and my family, I think about my great-grandmother, Maebel James.

She was born in the segregated South in 1896, just 33 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. She lost her husband to racist violence. And when the perpetrators threatened the lives of her children, she uprooted her family and fled the South to seek refuge here in Maryland.

Her life was not an easy one. But she was anything but bitter. While my sister and I were growing up, Maebel was always there, the anchor of our family, and the living embodiment of empathy, resilience, and dignity.

Maebel witnessed our country change and transform — sometimes for the better, other times not — and she faced it all with grace, empathy, and love.

Especially on this day, it’s worth remembering that the path to civil rights wasn’t easy or straightforward.

While we’ve made tremendous progress in the past half century, our fight for justice continues. Healthcare and housing inequality, criminal injustice, and bigotry persist. 

We haven’t yet achieved the dream of equality and love that Dr. King so eloquently described at the Lincoln Memorial, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

But we shouldn’t forget that Dr. King never stopped believing in the promise of America. He believed, as did my great-grandmother, that in spite of our flaws, that we are a nation determined to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday. 

And they were right. My family’s story is proof of that — from the segregated Deep South to the United States Senate. 

On this difficult day, I’ll leave you with the words that my great-grandmother always told me: Go farther and do better. 

We must march on, Folks, even when the path is steep and uncertain. 

Let us draw our hope from Dr. King’s legacy, an eternal reminder of all we’re capable of when we march together. 

Together,
Angela Alsobrooks