For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, my family attended a related church service, with an excellent sermon by the Rt. Rev. Nathan D. Baxter and a performance by the Trinity Boys Choir.  Their selections included “Only Love Can Do That,” a song arranged by Mark Miller set to the words of Martin Luther King Jr.  Among the songs that everyone sang together were “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “We Shall Overcome.”

“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson and music by his brother Rosamond, was (in the context of Colin Kaepernick and the National Anthem controversy) the subject of a recent New York Times editorial by Brent Staples and is the focus of a new book (May We Forever Stand) by Imani Perry of Princeton.

Beyond the King Day service that we attended, my daughter continued reading a book about children’s roles in the Birmingham civil rights actions (We've Got a Job), while my son (having earlier read books one and two) read book three of the John Lewis March trilogy.