Rebekah Fields is a Kindergarten Teacher in Dallas, Texas.

I don't think I properly valued Martin Luther King Day until yesterday, when I was teaching my students about it. What he lived for wasn't as real to me as I wanted it to be.

Because, let's face it: I'm white. And I didn't think the intense value of what he (and others like him) contributed (contribute) made an impact on my personal life because somewhere along the road I was given the ill-conceived notion that to truly appreciate the civil rights movement and black history month, I would need to change my ethnicity. I thought it was impolite and assuming - even disrespectful- to embrace black history as part of my own heritage as an American.

But (while I'm still a little concerned with disrespecting and over stepping someone else's heritage) yesterday, my students and I talked about Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, and the contributions of Dr. King. I was changed. Looking at my students, I asked them, "What if you couldn't drink from the same water fountain as your friend could just because of what you looked like? What if you couldn't go to school with your friends? Wouldn't that be sad?"

And the reality is, it would be more than sad. Tragedy doesn't even seem to describe it. How could our society make such an inhuman dividing line? It would make no more sense if we cut our own hearts out and divide them up according to shades of red. 

I thought back to my own history with the important non-caucasion men and women in my life. My foundations were built with their substantial influences. Where would I be with only the influence of white people? Bracing portions of my life would be left with gaping people-shaped holes. My life would be bleaker for the loss, without a doubt.

For instance, one of the main reasons I am a kindergarten teacher is because my own kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Cole, was one of the most important people in my life until she died a few years ago. I frequently close my eyes and remember what she smelled like. I remember her soft, dark-brown hands cupping my chin as I "ahhhh"d, and she, looking over her big glasses at my swollen throat, saying, "Oooooh, baby girl! You need to GO HOME! Bless your heart!"

Without her, would I be a secretary today? A sanitation engineer? A doctor? A lawyer? None of these would fit me as perfectly as Kindergarten Teacher. I am who I am because she was able to be who she was because THEY - Dr. King, Rosa Parks, the infinite men and women who clawed thier way up from injustice and slavery - gave of themselves so that she and I could ...be.

What if?

What if Dr. King hadn't fought so hard?

What if Rosa had gotten up and walked to the back of the bus?

What if Ms. Cole hadn't been there to teach me to color inside the lines and stay home with my sore throat?  

What if Booker T. Washington had never penned the words, "No man can enslave me without my permission"?

Would I be enslaved? Would I be deluded enough to enslave?

Looking into my kindergartner's wide, sponge-like eyes, I told them, "YOU could be the first black president! You could be the first woman president! You could be the first Hispanic president! What is your dream? Let's make it happen!"

Then, we watched a video of an interview with Dr. King a year before he was assassinated, and the racial barriers became even more translucent.

He was talking about the Vietnam war, and explaining his own views about pacifism.

"The problem with peace," he said, "is that people tend to think of it as a goal. It isn't a goal. It's the means - and should be the ONLY means - by which we seek to attain a goal."

A light bulb went on in my cerebrum.

Physically, we are from different families. Spiritually, we are siblings. Not half, not step, not adopted - we are "blood" relatives. We have the same family tree. We bear the same fruit. Our beliefs stem from a singular faith.

This IS my history. I can claim it. I don't want to take anything away from anyone, I only want to help fulfill The Dream, because I believe that if God sleeps, this is also The Dream He dreams.

When Dr. King said he envisioned people from all races living together, working together and playing together, he wasn't meaning to etch himself into my mind as an important historical black man. He was simply BEING a man (descriptive adjective purposefully neglected) who I can look up to. Someone who I can point all my students toward and say, "Be like this. This is right. Even if someone kills you for it, this would be a life worth dying for. This is what a human being should be."

That kind of person is difficult to find.

The world is fortunate to host such plain, true people.

And though I've always known that, the reality of his specific impact eluded me until now.

And now I'm left with the blissfully unsettling question I can no longer ignore:

Why does my mind create walls in the places where my soul should never be tied down? I long for freedom from my own misconceptions.

I long for the freedom to dream.

That is my dream.

Thank you, Dr. King, for the 100 watt moment.

I will see you on the other side of color, where we will finally see each other, and ourselves, in absolute clarity.