On Monday, we celebrated the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is an extraordinary national tribute to a leader who did not amass a fortune, nor command an army, nor hold elective office, and yet transformed America. In the U.S., we too often love martyrs and not marches. We honor those who sacrifice - after they are dead. Yet, Dr. King’s example when he was alive holds lessons for us today.
I spent Dr. King’s last birthday with him. While he took time to let us celebrate his birthday, he spent the day working, meeting with allies to talk about how to end the war in Vietnam and how to build a poor people’s campaign at home. Dr. King saw how the war in Vietnam had sapped energy and resources from the war on poverty at home. With millions in poverty — more whites than Black or brown people — in the richest nation in the world, he understood that we needed a “revolution in values,” a radical redistribution of economic and political power.
