The role of many Black musicians in making the ‘King Holiday’ a reality cannot be overlooked. There’s a great piece on The Grio detailing the effort Stevie Wonder, Gil-Scott Heron and many other Black artists put into making sure the legacy of Dr. King would be acknowledged by our nation.

Don Mizell writes, “Today, I can’t help thinking about the important, often crucial role that black pop music stars, and the black community media who showcased them, played in the struggles for equal rights and justice as they unfolded under Dr. King’s historic leadership….the Herculean effort by Stevie Wonder and others who joined him to commemorate King’s life’s work on behalf of our nation, through the creation of the first national holiday celebrating the achievements of an African American citizen, speaks volumes indeed.”

Stevie Wonder is indeed the one person who we can all look to and say without this man, there would no ‘King Holiday’. In 1980, Stevie Wonder was arguably the biggest pop-artist in the world. Stevie used his platform, passion, and voice to propel the idea of a national holiday celebrating the life of MLK into the national consciousness…and it worked.

Read the whole article here.

Source: The Grio

So what’s the point of Valentine’s Day? Are we trying to bolster the heart-shaped box and rejected-chocolate-flavor portion of our economy? Or is it really that important to show our affection when the earth is in a special love-filled spot during its orbit around the sun?

I’m not saying we should all go out and get relationship advice from Kelso of “That ’70s Show,” but Ashton Kutcher made a great point about his hatred of Valentine’s Day in a recent interview with Parade.

“I can’t stand it. I think that every day should be a day of romance. I think you should celebrate love 364 days out of the year. Then, on Valentine’s Day, you should get to tell whoever you hate that you cannot stand them. There would be one day of hating, and 364 days of love.” I know he hosted “Punk’d,” but he’s also married to Demi Moore (and makes an excellent point).

All of the single people reading this are probably waiting for the part where I bash Valentine’s Day for making all of the couple-less individuals feel sad. Well, I’m not, so you can get over it. Once again, Valentine’s Day is just another day of the year. Enjoy your singleness and go out with some friends and forget about the relationship thing. Don’t let this be another year of watching sappy romance movies while eating boxes of chocolates that you bought for yourself.

As for those of you who are currently in a relationship, don’t relegate special plans to a certain date on the calendar. Try doing the flowers, cards and romantic outings on days when every coupled person on the planet isn’t expecting something.

So go out there and make Feb. 14 a day to remember, but don’t forget about the 15th, 16th, 17th and so on. Make those days memorable, too. Just try to avoid the $1 boxes of assorted chocolates. Trust me.

Micah Rumsey opinions columnist and blogger

My family likes to invent new ideas for saving during the holidays. We have become professionals at saving money during Christmas. One year, all the adults bought 1 gift for the kids under 15; then we pulled names for the adults. The adult gifts were under 10 dollars and each kid was sure to get an item off there christmas list. To give the illusion of a big Christmas, we put all the presents under one tree. Usually, my mama’s house. The follow year, my big sister added to this tradition by having everyone put a note in a box with something you want to turn over to the Lord. Then we all say a prayer and the following Christmas we open the box to show how God has blessed us. I guess you can say it’s a Christmas time capsule! So many things you can do to make your Christmas fun and to remind everyone what Christmas is all about. You can adopt a family, give a Christmas cards to homeless, have a Christmas movie night. These are all things you can do without having to spend a lot of money. Let’s face it! We’re all broke this year! So share your small-budget Christmas-gift ideas and other insights on how to keep holidays from wrecking your financial plan with other listeners.

Merry Christmas
Marcus Wain
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