Take Action In Name Of Unity
This time every year, we’re swamped by Dream analysis.
Is the dream realized? Is it still alive?
Experts debate, pundits ponder. People speculate on what Martin Luther King Jr., himself, would say if he were alive today to assess the country’s progress on race relations.
Somewhere, in all of this, King’s true message is getting lost.
The third Monday of January, set aside to honor the Nobel Peace Prize winner, should be more than just a day to chart success or failure of an ideal. Because, in measuring, what are we doing to further the cause?
Taking the car for a tune-up? Hitting the slopes? Bargain hunting?
Certainly this holiday celebrating the birth of one of the nation’s most influential civil libertarians should be more than just a day off.
There is opportunity for reflection: King’s 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail is a glimpse at what and who motivated this highly passionate man. It’s worth finding and reading.
There is an opportunity for action: Marchers will gather at 9:30 this morning at the U.S. Court House at Riverside and Monroe for the annual Civil Rights Unity March to the Convention Center, where Spokane’s mayor and others will speak. The region should aim to triple last year’s attendance.
And then there are the other 364 days of the year, when places like the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center are looking for volunteers and contributions. When employers could look at their workforce for diversity and improve on it. When individuals should look in their hearts for bias and work to erase it.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and all it represents, is more than a “black holiday,” as some people dismiss it. King’s message was not just about racial equality for African Americans, but about universal equality and harmony - ideals that should appeal to all races, religions, genders and persuasions.
Alas, both have been in short supply lately. People are angry. They’re increasingly divided - along racial lines, along political lines. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is an opportunity to begin to cross some of those lines in the name of unity. It’s a day - and a man - for all to celebrate because we all benefit from it.
King’s words say it best. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Anne Windishar/For the editorial board