Living Up to The Dream

Favorite feral tabby.
Favorite feral tabby.
Favorite feral tabby.

This year the message on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is to not celebrate, but activate. Take an activist role in achieving his dream of equality and justice for all, for righting the historic wrongs done to black people as well as the wrongs still done today, and most of all to pass laws to ensure the right to vote.

Equality in opportunity of all sorts and inclusion in society’s processes is still not achieved if we look around us, recognize the portion of the local population that is black or non-white, and see that they are not represented in anywhere near the numbers they should be to truly be included in decision-making anywhere, in government, in business, even in individual workplaces.

One of those areas where black representation is deficient is animal welfare. In leadership positions at shelters and humane organizations of all sizes, the representation, or lack thereof, is embarrassing. Yet about a century ago black people were leaders in the nascent animal welfare world in this country, even as they worked for the welfare of their own people in the era of segregation and Jim Crow, often at risk to their own lives. Coming around to today and studying the history of animal welfare, we don’t see those pioneers. They are barely mentioned, removed from the stories, just as their accomplishments and their selves were removed from the history of societal changes in this country.

This is an excerpt of an essay I published on The Creative Cat in honor of Martin Luther King Day. Please visit The Creative Cat to read the rest of the essay: Living Up to The Dream


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