The Ledge - MLK, Jr.

What Should You Do on MLK Day? :nod: :nod: :nod:
By Jill Nelson, NiaOnline

As Jill Nelson reminds us, commemorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. -- the radical activist, not just the dreamer or the speaker -- requires more than a visit to the mall in search of a sale.

It's too bad that for most of us, the holiday on Jan. 15 commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday has become just another day off -- a day to vegetate, watch television, or go to the mall and take advantage of MLK Day sales.

During the long struggle to create a King holiday, it would have been impossible to predict this level of forgetfulness and indifference. But unfortunately, the legacy of King -- an activist, intellectual, and visionary who fought and died for social justice -- has become static, and he has become frozen as someone who had a dream in 1963.

Most often in the larger culture, honoring King's birthday consists of endless replays of snippets from his "I Have a Dream" speech, often sponsored by a large corporation and hooked to product advertising. It's as if King made only one speech and dreamed only one dream in his short but revolutionary life.

Don't get me wrong. I think King's speech at the 1963 March on Washington was eloquent, powerful, and enduring. What's disturbing is that the emphasis on that one speech in that one moment robs us of the breadth of the man's thinking, the evolution of his ideas, and the radical nature of his politics. It's as if the years of civil rights activism preceding that speech and the five years of activism following it, ending with his assassination in 1968, do not exist.

This emphasis freezes King in time as merely a dreamer, when in fact he was an unrelenting activist for radical social change and justice for all. In both subtle and obvious ways, it also sends a message that the struggle for a fair and equitable society is a fantasy.

Martin Luther King Jr. challenged all of us in America not only to live up to the ideals upon which this nation was founded but also to expand those parameters -- to put our bodies, hearts, and money where our mouths are, and to make the ideal of justice and equality something more than words. It's important for us to remember that King was far more than a talker; he was an activist. Yes, he used words to inspire, but he also used his actions to demonstrate how words and beliefs can be transformed into a movement for social change.

During his lifetime he was jailed, beaten, threatened, and spied on, yet he did not retreat. At this moment in our history -- when we are faced with an economic downturn, an illegitimate presidential election, the disenfranchisement of African-American voters, and the enormous growth of the prison industrial complex over the last decade -- his words and his actions should be an inspiration to all of us who believe in freedom and equality.

Honoring King's memory and continuing his much-needed legacy demands that we do more than simply take a day off. I'm convinced that King would ask and inspire something more from us: that we take a day to consider the injustices that remain rampant in our society, and then take action to effect change.

I intend to spend some time reading King's writings and to attend an event commemorating the man. Libraries are full of books by and about King -- for adults and children. Each of us should spend part of that day not only reminding ourselves of the principles for which he lived and died but also contemplating how we can make them real -- in our own lives, in the lives of our children, and in the life of this nation.

As King so eloquently put it, "History has thrust upon our generation an indescribably important destiny -- to complete a process of democratization which our nation has too long developed too slowly. How we deal with this crucial situation will determine our moral health as individuals, our cultural health as a region, our political health as a nation, and our prestige as a leader of the free world."