They were fresh from a Monday morning church service. “I’m old school. We dress up for church and we love to twin,” said Deborah Price with a smile in her eyes.
Price and her granddaughter Davian Hudley, 9, arrived at Denver’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in City Park wearing their Sunday best on this steely and frigid January day.
Price and Hudley walked beneath the bare-branched trees dressed in matching ensembles of maroon dresses with black overcoats accented by black and maroon flats, respectively. As they approached the memorial, both stopped and looked down at the entrance to the site. At their feet lay metalwork with outlines of bodies in tightly constructed rows. Hudley asked while pointing to the work, “What is this?”
Price, without hesitation and a truthful directness, began to explain that these bodies represented the way in which enslaved people were transported to the Americas. A brief silence of understanding overtook the two as Hudley peered through her glasses at the history before her.
Price’s direct approach developed through her desire to lead and educate her family based upon her own lived truth. “Every day of my life, it has always hurt me that me and mine cannot be fully accepted, Price said. “It’s always important that I do my piece to stand up and to educate my family.”
A small crowd of people gathered at the memorial to meditate, burn incense and gather as the statue of the man who had a dream stood tall above all. King’s message arrived in 1963 more than 57 years before this day in 2021 to a nation still coming to terms with the realization that perhaps it has not yet come to fully realize MLK’s dream of equality and kinship.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
Davian Hudley, 9, and her grandmother, Deborah Price, stand over the top of a work of art representing the way in which enslaved people were transported by ships to the Americas on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
Davian Hudley, 9, and her grandmother, Deborah Price, stand beneath the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in City Park on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
Davian Hudley, 9, and her grandmother, Deborah Price, stand beneath the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in City Park on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
Davian Hudley, 9, runs her hand across an artistic timeline of Black people in the United States adorning the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in City Park on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
Davian Hudley, 9, and her grandmother, Deborah Price, stand near a timeline of historic moments for Black people in the United States at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in City Park on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021.
For Price and her granddaughter, the trajectory of hope is playing out in real-time. “It saddens me that the fight continues. I hope that we are not going backward, but it is important that I arm her with every available tool, so that she can have equal life. I almost want to say so that she can one of these days have a life of entitlement.”
The youngster added that she feels proud to be an educated and strong young black person, but spoke on the steps needed to continue living King’s dream. “It feels nice that black people aren’t enslaved anymore even though we’re not treated exactly how we are supposed to be treated (now).”
As a sliver of sun sunk into the clouds overhead, Price and Hudley stood beneath a corner of the MLK memorial adorned with a statute of abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass. Price revealed that she had in fact taken her own daughter, Hudley’s mom, to Washington, D.C. to see the home of Douglass. The astonishment could not be hidden behind Hudley’s mask as she blurted, “You are the coolest grandma!”
Though Price – who keeps her age a secret from her granddaughter to maintain an aura of cool – laughed at the assertion that she is in fact the coolest grandma. Then she spoke seriously in reflection, “I wanted her to hear it as accurately as possible. I believe that MLK Day is a Black thing and unfortunately has become a day of service to make it more palatable … when unfortunately we are still fighting for equality.”
Source: Read Full Article