Coretta Scott King is doing what Rosa Parks did. She is calling upon us to own our part of her work,…which is our promise…to respect and invest in the human potential of each of us. She is forcing us to revisit the untimely death of her husband, to take from her the responsibility for moving forward the civil rights issues which were her life. It is the real and perpetual passing of the torch.

Civil rights was big at my family dinner table. It was big in Detroit in the 60’s, it is big now, and it was more than just about the African American community. It was about the immigrant Jewish community; it is now about the poor and the rich; about the literate and illiterate. It was about how short our collective memories were and is now about why it took me many years to realize the the great-grandparents of my very best friend were slaves in Alabama.

It is hardly an accident that in this time, Coretta Scott King would die, Rosa Parks would die, the 61st commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz would become the first time the UN decided to commemorate the Holocaust, that the PResident of Iran would deny that the Holocaust ever happened; that Japanese internment camps are so recent that they are not yet fully understood by school children in the US; that satirical cartoons would trigger riots across Asia;

What kind of torch will we pass? Will it be lit brightly by good works at combating and standing up to those who would denegrate and deny the potential of every person? Will the torch we pass be fueled by inspiration or fear?

Will our torches each become the well lit legacy that has just been passed to each of us?

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