Growing up in a region of the south that was part of the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement, I’ve always felt a certain connection to the past fight Jim Crow.  The high school that I attended was officially desegregated only 6 years prior to my birth.  As a child, I frequently visited the famous Woolworth’s store where four young male students from North Carolina A&T State University participated in the first sit-in, before it closed in the early 1990s.  My father and uncles were born in the “black hospital” that provided health and medial services to African Americans in central North Carolina, at a time when they had no other option.  I am a child of the Civil Rights Movement and part of Martin Luther King’s dream.

Today marks the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, a critical milestone in the movement for racial equality in America.  The 1963 March on Washington was one of the largest of its time, bringing together people of all races and ages in a fight to end racial apartheid in the United States.  Today, I will remember those who fought and sacrificed for my right to live as an equal member of American society.