The celebration of Dr. King's life and the impact he still has to this day should not be lost on our University community. Many of the opportunities that we have to interact with each other on a day to day basis are the result of Dr. King's and many unsung civil rights heroes like Medgar Evers', the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth's and many others' efforts.
Dr. King's holiday is a tribute to all who fought and lost their livelihoods, homes, education and lives for civil rights.
It is important to highlight the achievements of black Americans on days like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s holiday, weeks like these and throughout February, but we need to be reminded that black history is American history, and it should be celebrated and studied year-round. And we need to be reminded that the Civil Rights movement was not just a black thing. Opportunities to celebrate Black culture and the Civil Rights movement are unifying and help the world to learn about the experiences, accomplishments, sacrifices and opportunities that these great Americans made to our society. They had the audacity to speak truth to power and affect profound legal and societal change that has improved our country.
In spite of our best intentions, I recognize that laws and statutes don't change people's minds and hearts, but they can change their actions and habits. I was not alive during the era of "Jim Crow," a time when laws required blacks and whites to remain separate in their social and professional lives. I did not live in an era when black men were required to step off of the curb in deference to whites. I never heard Dr. King speak in person. That was not in my lifetime, he died 44 years ago. Some of your parents and grandparents and other relatives were alive during this time, and many had no problems with the way things were and chafe at the way things are today because of Dr. King's efforts. It is my hope that the people who still pass on racist ideals are becoming fewer and farther between because the Jim Crow era showed us that all people have to give up their humanity for a system like that to work. Laws that prevent common decency and common courtesy are detrimental to all in a society. (Kind of like the immigration statues currently being challenged in Alabama.)
I have been able to benefit from all of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s work and we all have over the course of our lives. I have been able to listen to his speeches and read about his life and philosophies. It is safe to say that we live in a better America because of Dr. King. We must heed the lessons that King taught us, the lessons of interracial cooperation, interfaith support, anti-poverty efforts and peaceful dissent. All of these lessons are appropriate today given our national and global climate and remind us of what Dr. King said about leadership: "We can lead because we can all serve."
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