January 9, 2007
Dr. King’s timeless call for unity
Every January, we have an opportunity to stop and reflect on the amazing contributions Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made to the life of this country. One measure of Dr. King’s greatness is that he was a man of so many different facets and outstanding qualities. If I were to ask a roomful of Iowans what their favorite thing about Dr. King is, I am sure I would get a dozen different answers: his philosophy of nonviolence, his courage, his oratory, his deep faith, his leadership ability, his capacity to inspire, and on and on.
I am no exception. I also have my favorite thing about Dr. King. What most impressed me was his unique ability to articulate a vision that united people of widely different walks of life. He brought us together on common ground that was invariably the high ground of America’s noblest ideals and principles.
When trying to persuade those who disagreed with him, Dr. King never demonized his opponents. He did not hate his adversaries. Instead, he summoned all of us to the best within us. He fought for equality and justice by stressing what unites us and ennobles us as Americans and as human beings.
It is my sincere hope that as we begin the new session, Congress will strive to emulate the civility that Dr. King modeled so well. In the last election, voters across the country made it clear that they want their representatives in Washington to rise above the partisan fray and work together to move America forward. By always focusing our common humanity, Dr. King provided us all with a powerful example of how to achieve this goal.
Consider these immortal words from Dr. King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal’... I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Who could disagree with that? Of course, in Dr. King’s day, there were still many people who did. But when he set forth such a powerful vision of equality and national unity, those naysayers must have known that their days were numbered.
Too often in our great American society, we focus on the relatively small things that divide us instead of the big things that unite us. Dr. King saw this as a failure of vision. As he put it: “We see men as Jews or Gentiles, Catholics or Protestants, Chinese or Americans, Negroes or whites. We fail to see them as fellow human beings made from the same basic stuff as we, molded in the same divine image.”
Yes, Dr. King struggled specifically for the civil rights of African-Americans. But he emphasized that this was truly a universal struggle, a struggle that every American has a stake in winning. And by doing so, he changed hearts and minds all across our country.
America is a great nation because we are a good nation. At critical times in our history, visionary men and women have stepped forward to summon us to “the better angels of our nature.” Dr. King earned a special place in black history – and in American and world history – as one of the greatest of those visionaries.