Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great American and civil rights leader. This is Editor Kíko Kí’s personal testimony about the meaning of Dr. King’s teachings.
Martin Luther King Day
Martin Luther King Day celebrates the civil rights leader’s birthday on January 15, 1929. The federal holiday is the third Monday of January. A lot of us get a day off, but what is it all about?
I think about him every year, and every year I understand something more. When I first started the New York Latin Culture Magazine project years ago, I wondered why I didn’t know more about this American legend.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a great man so he will mean different things to different people. Three things stand out for me.
Non-Violence
One is his philosophy of non-violence. Nobody learned anything staring down the barrel of a gun, or pointing one at someone else.
Rev. Dr. King’s position on non-violence was influenced by the great humanitarian Mahatma Gandhi. Violence only generates more violence. We have to be bigger than those who turn to violence.
Education
The second is education. He is not just Martin Luther King, Jr., he is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His title comes from a PHD in theology from Boston University.
Education gave Rev. Dr. King the opportunity to develop himself and exposed him to a world of ideas. If you can manage it, education will give you the same opportunity.
Follow Your Dream
The third thing that stands out about Rev. Dr. King is that he never gave up his dream. Sometimes he succeeded and sometimes he failed, but he kept going ~ even at great personal risk. The persistence of his vision, made him one of the immortals.
Rev. Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963. He was commemorating the anniversary of the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955. But in some kind of synchronicity, it is also the day of the Feast of St Augustine, the influential Christian philosopher from what is now Algeria in Mother Afrika, and the day when the great African American actor Chadwick Boseman, “Black Panther” died in 2020.
Listen to Rev. Dr. King. He’s not talking about anybody being better than anybody, or any kind of exclusion. He talks about Black and White and everybody together in a “symphony of brotherhood.”
What Dr. King Means To Me
I too have a dream that people will be judged not by the color of their skin, not by their last name, language or accent, not by their place of birth, social or immigration status, but by the content of their character.
I thank Rev. Dr. King for standing up for his community when it was unpopular, even dangerous to do so.
I’m multiracial and multicultural from birth, but being born, raised, and educated in the United States, my cultural education taught me that Dr. King represented another community. After contemplating Dr. King’s words, I don’t think that any more.
Today I believe that even if I don’t live Black, I belong to Dr. King’s community, and he belongs to my community too. We all share the same dream.
That thought expanded my world exponentially, and is core to the vision of New York Latin Culture Magazine.
Keith Widyolar
Editor-in-Chief
New York Latin Culture Magazine
We Can Vote Together
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s leadership of non-violent protest for civil rights helped move our country forward, but it hasn’t been enough. We are still under assault for the color of our skin, and now for our last names, accents, and even opinions.
The only way to gain equality is to take power ourselves. The way we do that in a democracy is by participating in the census, voting, and running for office.
Rev. Dr. King said, “So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind – it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact – I can only submit to the edict of others.”
“So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, I do not possess myself.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
May the spirit of Rev. Dr. King lead us to run for office, to the ballot box, and to the realization of our personal dreams, and the bigger dream of a country with “liberty and justice for all.”