(Mona caught me at Aliso beach, watching the sunset and reflecting on our day of service.)

When I was a kid I had a habit of reading ahead. I may not have been the best math or science student, but I loved my English classes and I’d zoom ahead of the reading assignments. I don’t remember any of the stories I came across in that grade school reader, but one continues to stick out in my mind — and it’s a story I’ve absorbed many times since then in other forms from documentaries to books. It’s the story of how a young, charismatic preacher from Atlanta reluctantly agreed to be nudged into the national spotlight to lead bus boycotts in his new parish in Montgomery, Alabama. It was also a story of how a brave black woman riding the bus home from work got sick and tired of segregation and refused to give up her seat for a white person.

(READ MORE…)