Dream YOUR Dream

I give Sheila James $1 every year on Dr. King’s birthday.

I used to do it in person. When I left Atlanta (and we were all still in office buildings), I’d call in and get someone to do it on my behalf. Just leave a dollar on her desk. She always knew it was from me.

(I still owe my friend Christine for a few of those years.)

Sheila knew Dr. King when she was growing up. Not as a hero or the leader of the civil rights movement – he was just a friend of her dad’s.

“Let me tell you what I remember about Dr. King,”

Sheila told me, umpteen-plus years ago.

“There I am, upstairs on the phone with my girlfriend – probably talking about some boy – and Junior comes racing up the stairs waving money around.

‘Sheila! Sheila! Dr. King gave me a dollar!!’

“I got off that phone so fast – and you know you didn’t EVER get off the phone back then because there was only one and you weren’t gonna get it back if you got off.

“But I also wasn’t about to miss out on a dollar.

“So, I’m all – ‘I gotta call you back!’ *click*

“I ran down those stairs and into my father’s study, went right up to Dr. King. Big smile on my face – I’m sure I batted my eyes at him.

‘Hi Dr. King.’ (bat-bat-bat)

‘Junior said you gave him a dollar…’ (more eyelash batting for emphasis)

“He smiled, I’m sure he said something, and then he gave me a dollar.

‘Thank you, Dr. King.’ (another big smile)

“I took that dollar, ran straight up those stairs to grab the phone before Junior could get it, and went right back to talking about whatever boy.”

She giggles at herself and the memory every time she tells it.

I LOVE that story. And I’ve given Sheila a dollar every year since I first heard it.

It’s how I honor Dr. King.

How I remember that he was this larger-than-life man who dared to have a dream and speak and speak and speak until the world was listening – and the world CHANGED.

Martin Luther King Jr. changed the world.

And he also sat with his friend and paid the kids a dollar to leave them be.

And THAT makes him a little more like me.

So, I send Sheila a dollar every year. I honor Dr. King and the enormous commitment he had, the depth of his courage – the enormous difference he made.

And I remember to dream.

Here’s to you. Go give a kid a dollar.

Dream YOUR dream.

Speak and speak and speak until your world changes.

xo, Kathy