The third Monday in January is reserved to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the only federal holiday formally recognized as a national day of service, “a day on, not a day off.”
A Day of Service and Reflection
This year marks the 97th anniversary of The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birth. According to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, this day “calls for Americans from all walks of life to work together to provide solutions to our most pressing national problems. The MLK Day of Service empowers individuals, strengthens communities, bridges barriers, creates solutions to social problems, and moves us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a ‘Beloved Community.’”
In the spirit of listening and thinking first, people are warmly encouraged to study the works of King, and to devote time to serious reflection on how we will endeavor toward a healthier, more just world for all.
The American Writer’s Museum is a good place to start. On a page dedicated to King, there is a list of some important speeches he made during his life. The review includes favorite quotes, but they strongly encourage folks to read and watch the speeches in their entirety so you may begin to understand the full depth of Dr. King’s radical work.
Also encouraged is a deep dive into, The King Center, and a visit to the official Facebook Page for Martin Luther King, Jr.
We also appreciate this US News Beat podcast entitled, “MLK: What they Won’t teach in school,” As they explain, it explores, “King, Jr.’s legacy, examining how the civil rights icon was so much more than simply the ‘I Have a Dream’ soundbite. Along with Pastor Roger C. Williams of the First Baptist Church of Glen Cove, NY, Larry Hamm of Newark, NJ-based People’s Organization for Progress, hip-hop artist Silent Knight, and King’s own words, listeners learn of MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign, which he believed would be his true legacy. “More than likely, it was this,” they write, “that got him killed.”
The Poor People’s Campaign
On his own last birthday, January 15th 1968, the Rev Dr Martin Luther King was in a planning meeting for the Poor People’s Campaign. For a man who preached radical love and action-oriented nonviolence, and who understood how truly difficult a path this is, this may have been his most profound notion: That repairing the ills thrust upon Black Americans requires repairing ills thrust upon all.
According to The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University’s page on The Poor People’s Campaign, “Seeking a “middle ground between riots on the one hand and timid supplications for justice on the other,’ King planned for an initial group of 2,000 poor people to descend on Washington, D.C., southern states and northern cities to meet with government officials to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, and education for poor adults and children designed to improve their self-image and self-esteem (King, 29 November 1967).”
The page continues, “’This is a highly significant event,’ King told delegates at an early planning meeting, describing the campaign as ‘the beginning of a new co-operation, understanding, and a determination by poor people of all colors and backgrounds to assert and win their right to a decent life and respect for their culture and dignity’ (SCLC, 15 March 1968).” You can read more on the Wikipedia page dedicated to the campaign.
King only made it a few months into the campaign before he was assassinated on April 3, 1968, leaving Ralph Abernathy, Sr. to carry on. More recently, in 2018, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach and the Rev. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center joined with others to launch “The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” to rekindle and carry that flame forward.
Said Long Island Coordinator, Susan Karbiner, “We give it our best to follow the path we believe King would have chosen. Some things, like advancing voting rights for all are fairly obvious, but we’ve incorporated other things as well, such as overcoming environmental devastation and Climate Change, which we can only infer that King, based on his speeches, would have embraced our involvement in.
In Honor and Gratitude
We, ourselves, resonate with King’s beautiful dream, honor the very specific struggle of Black Americans that King dedicated his life to overcoming, and give grateful thanks to him and all those who advance the cause of freedom, justice and dignity for all.
Note: An earlier draft of this article state that this year marks the Rev. Dr. King’s 95th birthday. That was in error. He was born in 1929, making him 97 this year.
