Dana Bell

Today we celebrate the life of a man that epitomizes a movement that improved the civil rights of millions of Americans, not just the black people, but all minorities. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stood up to the authorities in Alabama and accelerated the movement to give people of all skin colors the freedom to live their lives without oppression.

Unfortunately, the work of the civil rights activists has not improved the lives of African Americans as much as it should have. While minorities have been pushing and celebrating improvements in civil rights and their freedom as Americans, they have largely ignored those people that have appropriated that freedom to excel.

The lives of people like George Washington Carver should now be at the forefront of today's drive for independence in our present day culture. His drive to be successful in whatever he did allowed him to find a hundred uses for peanuts, to develop products for industry, and to foster the efforts of others.

He used what he had, and made it a valuable commodity. But, I'm not talking just about peanuts. I'm talking about his character. As I read one of his biographies, I admired him for his perseverance, his hard work, and his concern for others. He was a valuable role model for African-Americans. He had some help from others but he didn't have it easy.

It is true that many of our professional athletes are dark skinned, and professional sports does involve work, but becoming a successful professional athlete should not be everyone's dream. One of the things that George Washington Carver did was debunk the idea that the black race was intellectually inferior to the white race. As individuals, we can have our own dreams, dreams that we can turn into reality.