Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance.

During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a time to honor the greatest champion of racial equality who taught a nation - through compassion and courage - about democracy nonviolence and racial justice.

Honestly I'd love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic but if I'm doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I'm doing.

There is no racial or ethnic involvement in Thanksgiving and people who may be very distant from the Christian system can see the beauty and the positive spirit that comes from the holiday.

I understand Tea Partyers' anger with the system but they are in way over their heads and often racially motivated and I can't be part of that.

I saw how many people were poor and how many kids my age went to school hungry in the morning which I don't think most of my contemporaries in racially segregated schools in the South thought very much about at the time.