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Holy Name Monastery
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President Biden

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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A Proclamation on Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday, 2022

 

 JANUARY 14, 2022 • PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS

 

On a late summer day in 1963, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on the National Mall before hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who had gathered to march for freedom, justice, and equality.  On that day, Dr. King shared a dream that has continued to inspire a Nation:  To bring justice where there is injustice, freedom where there is oppression, peace where there is violence, and opportunity where there is poverty.  Today, people of all backgrounds continue that march — raising their voices to confront abuses of power, challenge hate and discrimination, protect the right to vote, and access quality jobs, health care, housing, and education.  On this day, we reflect on the legacy of a man who issued a call to the conscience of our Nation and our world.

Dr. King pushed us to see ourselves in one another, recognizing that we are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”  He reminded us that we have a duty to uphold our founding ideals and work to perfect our Union.  Through bus boycotts, restaurant sit-ins, freedom rides, and marches, the movement that Dr. King helped lead used non-violent protest and civil disobedience to advance the call for justice. He was jailed dozens of times for his efforts, but Dr. King’s commitment to justice never wavered.  From a Birmingham jail, he reminded us that “human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability…injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent, and determined action.”

Living up to his legacy, and what Dr. King believed our Nation could become requires more than just reflection — it requires action.  We must protect the hard-fought gains he helped achieve and continue his unfinished struggle.  That is why the Congress must pass Federal legislation to protect the right to vote — a right that is under attack by a sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion.  We must confront the scourge of racism and white supremacy — a stain on our Nation — and give hate no safe harbor in America.  We must strive to achieve not just political equality but also economic justice so that workers can earn a decent living, students can learn safely, the sick can access health care, the poor can climb out of poverty, the elderly can age with dignity, and everyone in America can live without discrimination or fear.

Just as in Dr. King’s time, there are those who now say that change would be too disruptive and that these urgent needs can wait. But we must resist complacency, summon new resolve to advance the cause of freedom and opportunity, and do our part to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.  This is the cause of our time.  We are at an inflection point in our history — in the midst of a battle for the very soul of our Nation.  We all must find the courage to keep pushing forward in our struggle to realize Dr. King’s dream for a freer, fairer, and more just society.  We must keep the faith in that righteous cause — and in each other.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Monday, January 17, 2022, as the Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday.  I encourage all Americans to observe this day with appropriate civic, community, and service projects in honor of Dr. King and to visit www.MLKDay.gov to find Martin Luther King, Jr., Day of Service projects across our country.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.

 

                                                        JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

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Black History Month

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Black History Fact of the Week

Brought to you by Saint Leo University

Black History Month is an annual celebration by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in the U.S. history.  Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of a noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans.  Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month.  Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.

The story of Black History Month begins in 1915, half a century after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

That September, the Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization dedicated to reseaching and promoting achievements by Black Americans and other peoples of African descent.

Known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.  The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.

In the decades that followed, mayors of cities across the country began issuing yearly proclamations recognizing Negro History Week.  By the late 1960s, thanks in part to the civil rights movement and a growing awareness of Black identity, Negro History Week had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses.

President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

To learn more, visit History.com: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month.

 

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The Hill We Climb

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WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 20: Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman speaks at the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today’s inauguration ceremony Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

 

The Hill We Climb

Inaugural Poem by Amanda Gorman

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew

That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promised glade The hill we climb If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold, fierce and free
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right, then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it

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