Serving others will honor King’s legacy

If I were a journalist in the 1960s, my bucket list of people to interview would have most certainly included Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

January 15 would have been the 85th birthday of King, known as the apostle of non-violence and the Civil Rights movement.

This is an important weekend for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to acknowledge King. He was born in Atlanta and entered Morehouse College as an early-admission student at age 15. And in the early ’60s much of King’s work took place in Southern states like Georgia.

When I moved to Atlanta eight years, ago one of the first things I did when becoming acclimated to the city was to tour the King Center and the community where he grew up. I had done the tour as part of a family vacation as a child, but as an adult living in King’s hometown, the visit seemed like an unspoken mandate.

As a child I remember learning so much about what King did. As I got older, I became much more interested in who he was, his character and what he stood for.

To have had the opportunity to interview King would have been life-changing, I’m sure.

The first thing I would have asked him is where he got his courage? As a Southern minister, I’m sure King’s answer would have tied in his spiritual beliefs and the value of the gospel in his life and his work.

Just thinking about his courage gives me chills. King invited discomfort into his life every day and for unselfish reasons. He made sacrifices that came with no guarantees. He was invested in something he didn’t know would work out. How many of us have that kind of unconditional courage?

I imagine that even though his life was threatened daily for preaching about equal rights and a better society for his children and others, he didn’t dwell on the risks. He knew that the outcomes far outweighed the risks.

We shouldn’t forget though that there were many others like King who flew under the radar and didn’t get the attention King got. Still, he certainly deserves credit for elevating the conversations of race and fairness in ways that may never have occurred were it not for his passion and fearlessness.

As I think about what King stood for, I wonder what he would say about today’s society if he were alive? Would he be proud of how far things have come? Perhaps disappointed that so many things haven’t changed? What would he say about our youth? What would he say to our youth?

Among the many things I’ve learned in my readings of King is that he was adept at using the media to bring the issues of equality and tolerance into the forefront of public consciousness.

Under the helm of then-executive editor Ralph McGill, The Atlanta Constitution covered King’s efforts to combat racism and the Civil Rights movement. McGill is mentioned by name in King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” King credited McGill, among others, for writing about the civil rights struggle in “eloquent and prophetic terms.”

In more recent years, a long list of Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters have written about the King family in Atlanta. Among them is reporter Ernie Suggs, who said that members of “the King family, while private, have never been shrinking violets, and their every move – from lawsuits to speeches to matrimony – is of interest … It is our job to chronicle that. And the family’s responsibility to acknowledge the position they are in. … Despite our coverage – while [the King family] may have kept their distance – they have always maintained a level of class.”

Last Sunday, some members of the King family greeted visitors and held a book signing as part of the King Center’s formal events honoring the upcoming holiday. The center, on Auburn Avenue, has special events planned through January.

Monday, the nation will officially honor the birthday of King. Since the third Monday of January became a federal holiday, it has become known as a day of service under the theme “Make it a day on, not a day off.”

That theme grew out of something that King said. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’”