Martin Luther King Day was important to us even before we became the parents of a beautiful African-American daughter. As I like to tell people, “we’re just your typical Korean-Ethiopian-American family.” Dr. King’s vision – individuals being judged by the content of their character – is a profound one for us.

As one of my favorite authors, Randy Alcorn, wrote today, “…it is about a vision, a movement, a value of reconciliation between people of every tribe, nation and language.”

The earliest symptoms of racial division were slavery, and years later, we’re still dealing with its dark legacy around the world. Look no further than Haiti – a nation colonized by the French with African slaves in the mid 18th century. That country’s desperate poverty and the conditions that led to such utter devastation after last week’s earthquake can be traced directly to the bitter root of slavery.

President Lincoln is revered today for his role in making slavery illegal in the United States, but slavery was only the most virulent symptom of racial division. It took another hundred years to change enough hearts and minds to end segregation in this country, and many more years after that to heal many wounds of that era.

And while some will always try to use race to divide rather than unite, we now live in the era of the first African-American President of the United States. While his loss a year ago wouldn’t necessarily have been evidence of racial division, his victory was certainly evidence of its near-absence – and proof that the United States of America is an incredibly exceptional country.

Thank you, Dr. King, for dreaming of racial harmony. Because of your life and work, we live in a nation and a world that is a little bit closer to the equality and respect for our common humanity that God intended from the beginning.