Big City to Big City - Angelo De Nubbila

Living in Denver for the past month has been an incredible experience. I have experienced many things that have truly changed the way I perceive urban life. Coming from a big city to finally a big city has been quite soothing and it has shown me what living in large city is. Out of all the experiences that I’ve had to this point, the one that I can point out the most and highlight as a great and life-changing would be the Martin Luther King Jr. Parade in celebration of his birthday in January 19^th. 

This day marked an incredible accomplishment in Black American history as people celebrated the man who liberated so many black people from being oppressed so many years ago. I must say that this march was something that brought a great deal of memories to my heart and mind since I have been present in marches of this sort. I remember that a couple years ago I marched along with other thousands of Colombians in a walk of peace, which the main goal was to have the guerrilla, known as the FARC, to liberate a lot of hostages that were captive in several of their camps. This walk or march also called for peace for Colombia and love from all citizens of my beautiful country. Sorry if I sound a bit bias, but something that I am extremely proud of is to call myself a Colombian.

As you can see, I am quite patriotic and love my country very much. A feeling I know a great deal of Americans can relate to when talking about the U.S. I was happy to see so many people, both black and white, marching together to celebrate the life of a hero and a man who truly changed the wrong way of thinking of the United States. Unfortunately there is still racism, not only here, but also all over the world. This is an issue that might never disappear but slowly but surely people are fighting and keeping their faith strong that one day racism will be completely obliterated from the world. On this day, I was honored to walk among other people who might even been alive during the time of MLK. What truly marked me would definitely be to see how much, a whole city, and probably a whole country, shared loved for a man like Martin Luther King Jr. I remember some words from a speech that MLK did many years ago and there are words to which he closed his speech that resonated through my head on that day. “Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” This was a man who fought for equality and through his religion; he immersed himself into the politics world with the goal of freeing his people and making the world a better place. Freedom is such a broad term, but with all of the world’s problems today this phrase definitely applies to all of us, for we are all prisoners of our minds and personal problems and I know for a fact that my country needs some freedom. So as Dr. King said: “Thank God almighty we are free at last.”