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Health & Fitness

MLK Day: Remembering How Far We've Come

Aliso Viejo is a great example of a blended community that thrives. Ours is a fantastic mix of people of all types. But we shouldn't forget that communities like our didn't always exist.

I grew up in Ft. Worth, Texas. It's not the South but isn't that far removed. Many communities weren't integrated. Whites were on one side of town, blacks on the other. Latinos had their own neighborhoods. There were border areas that had some mixing but that was more the exception than the rule.

My father managed restaurants. I grew up and eventually worked in them. Even the kitchens were racially divided. Blacks did the cooking, Latinos did food prep and dish washing and the whites served the food.

I lived through forced busing which was a failed attempt to integrate schools.  Nobody liked sending their child off on a school bus to the other side of town at a way too early hour. School fist fights were commonplace. A failed attempt to change the human condition. I will spare you the racial epitaphs that were hurled.

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We have come a long way since. Aliso Viejo is a great example of a blended community that thrives. Ours is a fantastic mix of people of all types. But we shouldn't forget that communities like our didn't always exist.

Take some time out this week to read a book about Martin Luther King Jr. or any of the other civil rights leaders. Catch that new movie about Jackie Robinson. Talk to your kids about what once was. We all have a dream and together we can make them happen.

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