I don’t feel worthy to write about Dr.King, or try in any way to interpret his words or place them in the context of what is happening today. He was a child prodigy who graduated from Morehouse College at 19, and promptly set out to make change, and did so beyond what even he might have imagined during his short life.

I’m also not particularly thrilled to join the chorus of those who extoll his virtues on this one day in January, the approximate day of his birth, 94 years ago on January 15, 1929. And I can’t help but remember those many members of Congress who fought against marking the day of his birth with a national holiday and a day of service to our nation. It took over three decades of marches, petitions and Congressional wrangling for President Reagan to finally sign the bill into law in 1983, and the first MLK Day was not celebrated until the third Monday of January, 1986. Yet today, two states, Alabama and Mississippi, embarrassingly celebrate “King-Lee” Day, insisting on putting the Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, a slave owner and traitor to his country on par with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I know we’re currently arguing about what to teach our children in history class, but let us now agree on at least one fact: the North won.

Late yesterday, the historian and professor at Boston College, Heather Cox Richardson wrote a fascinating post on her Substack newsletter, “Letters From an American, which told the story of heroes, both ordinary and extraordinary, who simply made a choice to do the right thing. And she segued into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic last speech, given the night before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had stopped to support striking sanitation workers. You can read the entire speech here.

This talk of heroes inspired me to add to today’s discourse a few of the many words of Dr. King that are particularly meaningful to me and this newsletter. I stumbled upon (via a 2018 Washington Post piece) an article he wrote for the Morehouse College student newspaper in 1947 that is apropos to the post I just wrote a few days ago on the importance of critical thinking:

…Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one’s self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

You can read the full article titled “The Purpose of Education”, here.

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It seems like I discover something new and compelling about the life and words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. every time I read more about his writings and life work. And this knowledge helps me better understand why we all should embrace and practice the idea of public service.

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