What would Dr. King do this birthday?
What would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. do to celebrate his 96th birthday? Would he sit on the sidelines and cheer the incoming president who stands for everything that king was opposed to? Would he be wheeled to a protest to deliver rousing resistant remarks? Would he use the opportunity, the occasion of his holiday, to introduce young and vibrant new leaders? Would he embrace Rev. William Barber and invigorate the Poor People’s Campaign? Dr. King is not here to tell us what he would do, but we can guess at his profound dissatisfaction at this moment in history.
We must know that Dr. King would be “no ways tired” because he never was. He was a man of audacity who, in accepting the Nobel Pace Prize spoke of his “audacity” to believe in justice. In his many speeches, he spoke of issues of distribution, getting to the economic b otto line – who gets what, when, where and why? What would Dr. King do for his birthday. He’d be fighting!
There are those who are about to give up. We have an incoming President who wants to turn the clock backwards. He wants to eliminate DEI, set5 back progress in education, eliminate public broadcasting, and more. We aren’t surprised. He told us what he was going to do through Project 2025, which he now somewhat disavows. No one should be surprised about anything that happens in these next few year. I am not surprised about anything but the ways so many have rolled over with resignation. Civil rights advocates dd not roll over for the Bushes (although they were kinder, gentler Republicans that Mr. Trump is). We didn’t roll over for Ronald Reagan, whose racist rhetoric, while repugnant (remember the “welfare mother” with 13 kids), did not prevent him, under pressure, for making Dr. King’s birthday a holiday. We didn’t roll over the first time the Orange Man had a bite at the presidency apple, and we won’t roll over now.
So the road isn’t going to be easy, but it never was. Ask Sojourner Truth or Harriet Tubman. Ask Mary McLeod Bethune or Sadie Alexander. Ask Whitney Young or A. Philip Randolph. Take our leaders out of the history books, sit down with them and ask them. Was it easy? And they will tell you that it was not.
So what would Dr King do? What will you do? We keep fighting for equality. For reparation. For criminal justice fairness. We keep talking about the nonsense that the incoming President embraces. We keep showing up at rallies, and we engage in radical self-care so that we do not burn out. And we bu8ild community together, mindfully, purposefully and willingly.
Progressive people and civil rights advocates experienced a devastating blow in November. But we have been down this path before. I think of the days after President Lincoln was assassinated when, in the words of poet and playwright James Weldon Johnson wrote of the days when “hope unborn had died”. Our Negro National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing” melodiously walks us through aspects of our struggle. It is our lesson, our blessing, our history, our reminder.
What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do about poverty, inequality, homelessness, unequal education, resistance? What would he be doing in a nation that has still not fully accepted his brilliance? In too many states, the King holiday has been paired with something Confederate, even though we know that the Confederates lost. It is a genuflection to Caucasity that allows some stats, Southern in particular, to attempt to erase the meaning of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He will not be erased; we can’t let it happen. Thus, and so, the struggle continues.
There will be King Day celebrations all over the country, along with a putrid inauguration of a man that King would be repulsed by. But King was among those who embraced the spiritual “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”. WE are climbing a steep hill, and we are climbing. What would Dr. King do this birthday? He would fight!
