How Do You Remember MLK on Civil Rights Day?

            Tomorrow is Constitution Day, and it is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Therefore, this post will be a commemoration of Dr. King’s life and legacy. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is described as being “remarkable, conscience-searing and life-transforming” but contained “much suffering, sacrifice and surrendering.” This speech is often quoted, but few people understand the sacrifices King made for the civil rights movement. These are the words of The Reverend Theresa A. Dear, a national board member of the NAACP. 

For years, Dr. King traveled the world delivering messages of non-violence, protesting against injustice and advocating for civil rights laws. In so doing, he was often away from his wife, Coretta, and their four children. Dr. King and the King family made significant, countless and untold sacrifices for generations unborn.

It was primarily because of Dr. King’s selfless and courageous leadership that the civil rights movement was imagined, advanced and sustained. He was n original influencer who, without social media or the internet, was able to motivate and mobilize hundreds of thousands of Black and white people to attend the March on Washington in August 1963.

He was an original influencer who, without social media or the internet, was able to motivate and mobilize hundreds of thousands of Black and white people to attend the March on Washington in August 1963.

The March on Washington and Dr. King’s incessant drumbeat of justice and desegregation influenced the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Dr. King referred to this law as nothing less than a “second emancipation.” From this law, many rights and protections were extended to various groups in America, including women, veterans, the disabled and LGBTQ.

            Dear wrote that it was King’s “intellectual capacity, effectual tenacity and spiritual audacity that intrigued and inspired the masses.” However, King also experienced “death threats, ominous calls to his homes at all hours of the night, being abandoned by some fellow clergy members while incarcerated in Birmingham, police profiling, the bombing of his home, being stabbed by a mentally ill Black woman and living under a cloud of crippling and constant fear.”

            According to Dear, King and his family “endured a life of danger without laws or law enforcement to protect them.” Dear claims that we are indebted to King because he forfeited safety “for the greater good of the country.” We commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. because he was willing to make sacrifices for the rest of us.

            Dear compared the words and actions of revisionist leaders to those of King. They “whitewash Black history, academic institutions deny tenure to professors who write about slavery and critical race theory is used as a political lightning rode.” However, the actions of revisionist leaders “are antithetical to Dr. King’s dream.”

Dear wrote, “The denial or attempted erasure of Black history cannot extract, extricate or expunge the indelible sacrifices, contributions and legislation made by Black people. Thus, we are indebted to Dr. King to be guardians of our history.”

When protests erode into the destruction of property, violence against humanity becomes random and crime within Black communities surges, this is contrary to the principles for which Dr. King advocated. The increased violence within the Black community dishonors the legacy of Dr. King, who went to jail more than 20 times for our freedom, rights and protection. Thus, we are indebted to Dr. King to be gatekeepers of our communities and adopt non-violent practices to resolve conflict and hold one another accountable.

When politicians go shamelessly rogue to suppress the right to vote, gentrify communities and promote false propaganda, this defies the tenets of Dr. King’s relentless endeavors of equality and access. Thus, we are indebted to Dr. King to resist, rally and work to repeal agendas that are not fair for all.

Dr. King was a minister, scholar, moral philosopher, follower of Mahatma Gandhi, civil rights leader, legislative advocate, hypnotic orator and brilliant thought leader, strategist and visionary. With his many accomplishments, his masterstroke may have been combining his vulnerability, humanity and faith to effectively serve mankind. For these offerings and many more, his unfinished work is now ours. Continuing his redemptive work is how we pay our debt to the Dreamer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

            Dear decries the actions of some Black people and some politicians who seem to forget King’s desire for peaceful protests. I wonder what she would say about the plans of President Joe Biden to use the advent of Black History Month to issue executive orders that would include parts of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Such orders would work against law enforcement and increase chaos, crime, and danger in communities.