Martin Luther King Day is a day that many people, especially teenagers, don’t quite fully understand. Every year, the same fundamental question seems to cross everyone’s mind- “How and why do we honor MLK?”

Martin Luther King Day is celebrated on the third Monday of every January. This holiday is one that is representative of hope, healing, and intercultural cooperation. King dreamed of a color-blind society and led a movement that achieved historic reforms to help make this happen in America. Although King began all of that during the civil rights movement, it evolved into much more.

“I think unless we understand the oppression side of the movement and how life was before it, it can be hard to understand why we need to remember it now,” said junior Andrea Ramirez “I think if people educate themselves better on the subject, it can lead to it being more understood.”

MLK Day is not only a day for celebration, but one for remembrance and education. It’s a day to learn something new.

“I think it’s important to celebrate Martin Luther King Day and honor him because the equal rights movement(s) more or less started with African Americans fighting for equal treatment and MLK took a really great and effective approach in the way that he fought for those rights,” said senior Rochelle Berg. “The movement(s) provides a great platform for how we continue to go about equal rights movements in this generation with things such as women’s rights and LGBTQ rights.”

Honoring someone who has accomplished so much that was unthinkable at one time may sound a bit daunting and impossible, but it may be easier than you think.

Mr. Anderson, a world language teacher at AHS, said that, “Martin Luther King Day is meant to commemorate a period of our history where we were realizing that we deserved more rights than we were getting. It’s meant to serve as a reminder. Those same lessons learned during the civil rights movement can be applied to the rest of the world and our future. The civil rights movement helped to open people’s minds about much more than just racial equality. It was very multifaceted.”

Martin Luther King Day encompasses more beyond the obvious. It’s a day that most of us shamelessly overlook. But King’s voice and vision filled a great void within America that is still being filled today- we cannot forget about the things Dr. King and our nation have accomplished over time.