When I think about what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day means to me and my family, I think about my great-grandma, 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. When the perpetrators of that crime 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. Still, Maebel was never bitter, always there to be the anchor of her family, 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 now, 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. 

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

So we march on, Folks, even when the path is steep and uncertain. 

As my great-grandmother always told me, "Go farther and do better."

Together,
Angela Alsobrooks