In honor of Martin Luther King Day, watch this clip and remind yourself that nobody owns your character. The only worthiness interview or recommend that matters is the one you write and sign yourself upon your soul.
The most free I’ve ever felt was that day that I said to myself,
“Yes, I’m gay, I’m proud of it! I’m gay and beautiful!”
That was the day I owned my manhood.
(I’ve pasted the text to his speech below in case you can’t watch the video)
“I come here tonight to plead with you: Believe in yourself, and believe that you’re somebody!
“I said to a group last night, nobody else can do this for us. No document can do this for us. Not even an Emancipation Proclamation can do this for us. Nor can a Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill do this for us.
“If the negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation.
“Don’t let anybody take your manhood. Be proud of our heritage. As somebody said earlier tonight, we don’t have anything to be ashamed of.
“Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word ‘black.’ It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word ‘white,’ it’s always something pure and high and clean. But I want to get the language right tonight. I want to get the language so right that everybody here will cry out, ‘Yes, I’m black, I’m proud of it! I’m black and beautiful!’”
Love your comment about when you felt free. I agree, there was a sense of freedom and accepting my homosexuality and finally appreciating myself for who I was meant to be. Peace