Erev Martin Luther King Jr Day

The masculine noun ערב ('erev), meaning sunset or evening, the time of day at which the sun has crossed the whole of the sky (Genesis 8:11, Deuteronomy 16:6, Job 7:4).
You don't need to know this and chances are you will never use this (unless you are Jewish). I think about the many aspects of my culture that don't really pertain to any of my day-to-day existence. One of the complex aspects of observing special dates is the fact that the Hebrew calendar differs from Gregorian one. According to Wiki, "The Hebrew or Jewish calendar (הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, ha'luach ha'ivri) is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances."
In addition, "The Jewish day is of no fixed length. The Jewish day is modeled on the reference to '...there was evening and there was morning...' "
I'm writing this entry at 2300 on January 17th. In my Hebrew world, this would already be the next day since the day changes at sunset rather than at the fixed hour of 0000 (or 12:00 midnight).
I lived during an era when Martin Luther King was alive. I grew up in the north (Yankee country) and when I went to public grade school in the 1960s, integration of the races in education was a hot button topic. It was the African Americans (i.e., negroes, blacks) who were bussed to the white schools. I couldn't imagine what it must be like to have to leave your neighborhood and be part of a classroom where you were stared at for being so different.
I'm no stranger to being judged. That happened within my family and from the outside. Some people are better insulated from the mean spiritedness that exists as part of the human condition. I, alas, was not one such lucky person.
The dream of Martin Luther King is still a valid one. We are fighting over everything. It's constant. So often I see at my integrated workplace the disharmony among racial lines. How do you tell someone, "I'm not angry at you because of the color of your skin, I'm angry at you because you treat me like a piece of trash!" I'm not into raising consciousness and doubt that I will be doing it any time soon.