The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has had a historic and lasting impact on our nation. But in these turbulent times, some people have forgotten to live his legacy of faith, tolerance, helping others, love and leadership. Instead, a few people have chosen intolerance, dependency, destruction and self-serving exploitation.
Fortunately, Dr. King's impact on this nation was not just about race in America. It was about America.
Race relations in America are not defined by the lens of the mainstream media or the exploitation of unfortunate encounters between police officers and some of its citizens, but by the relationships we encounter every day with the people around us.
As the famous educator and minister Mr. Fred Rodgers would say, it's about our neighborhood. That's where Dr. King's legacy lives the most.
Our faith as a nation, without which we would not be the nation we are today, is under attack. Dr. King understood what our founders and historic patriots understood, that “faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
The first step in making race relations or anything better is to recognize where we are and where we want to go, instead of trying to drag the nation back into the past. Our staircase to the future should build on how far we have come, instead of where we were in the 1960s.
We are in a fight for faith in our lives, and we must fight, because freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. The Civil Rights Movement would not have succeeded without faith.
Dr. King believed tolerance was looking past one's color when he said, "I have a dream that one day my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." I would add, and not by gender or religious beliefs as long as it does not infringe on someone else's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
But we cannot look past ignorance and stupidity. "There is nothing more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity," Dr. King said. As a society, we are not going to save everybody from the consequences of government deception, self-inflicted ignorance and stupidity. But we can save the savable. We can save enough with the truth to avert a crisis of dependency on government.
I know we are close to dominant government dependency, but we have not crossed the tipping point as some would believe. Just consider the results of the November 2014 federal elections.
Dr. King believed in helping others. It was his Christian foundation. Everyone can do something for the betterment of mankind, no matter how big or small. As he said, "If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way." And I would venture to say that he did not believe in people taking advantage of other people, nor in government taking advantage of the people.
Perhaps most of all, he believed in the power of love, saying: "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."
There is a difference between an enemy who does not like you, and one who hates you and wants to destroy you. The Civil Rights Movement was about tolerance, equal treatment and equal opportunities for all. It was not about surrendering to the radical Islamic terrorist threat to our way of life.
And he knew that what matters most is what you do when the impact is greatest: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
Dr. King stood tall in the midst of the civil rights struggle, and he did it non-violently. That was part of the genius of his leadership. He changed hearts and minds.
Dr. King did not go looking for the Civil Rights Movement. The Movement found him. And when it did he knew that we could no longer be silent as a nation, because: "Our lives begin to end when we remain silent about things that matter.”
Dr. King's leadership gave this nation new life, as we pressed toward its creed of "all men are created equal." But in these turbulent times, faith, tolerance, helping, love and leadership seem to be missing something.
Dr. King, we miss you.
