KEEPING DR. KING'S LEGACY IN PERSPECTIVE

There is an almost palpable, but unspoken perception that this day, the day set aside to remember the life and works of Martin Luther King Jr., belongs exclusively to black people. That feeling, I think, exists almost universally across the various races in this country. The popular memory and teachings are that King incited the black race in this country to stand up against both social and codified racism, and that's true. But it's only part of the truth.
The rest of the truth is that Dr King sought equality and justice not just for a single ethnic group, but for everyone. And the fact that one group benefitted more immediately than any other, is likely because of the entrenched racial seperatism that was so deeply woven into the American fabric at the time. But conventional wisdom and popular memory often seems to ignore the fact that Dr. King clearly championed justice and equality for everyone, whatever their race, religion, or social status. He brought together is own followers with SNCC and SCLC to expand the demand for equal access to jobs and justice, voting rights, fair housing laws, equal educational opportunities and perhaps most importantly, human rights. Even on the day he died in Memphis, he was there to lend support to striking sanitation workers, not simply because of their skin color, but because what they were doing was right and benefitted those without power.
And when we remember Dr. King, we need to remember he was a man of the cloth, a preacher with an unshakable belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ and Mahatma Ghandi. And nowhere was that more clear than when he delivered what was probably eleoqent and stirring speech of the 20th century.
"And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"