'Battle for equity and justice is not over'
Two local educators are encouraging Butler County residents and those across the United States to spend at least part of their day off Monday reflecting on the mission of the man for whom Martin Luther King Jr. Day is named.
“I hope that individuals will stop and think that the battle for equity and justice is not over,” said Belinda Richardson, vice president of academic affairs at Butler County Community College.
Richardson served as keynote speaker last year for the Butler YMCA's Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast, and the speech necessitated further research on King by Richardson.
“I was awakened by some of the publications and books that came to my attention,” she said.
In them, she learned that King was more than a man of faith and courage who led a movement in the 1960s that changed the trajectory of the nation.
He contributed vastly to social, economic and political justice as well.
“We can extract principles and beliefs from (King's life) to help us aggressively move toward the future,” Richardson said.
Melissa Ford, a history professor at Slippery Rock University, agreed, saying King's short life included criticism of the Vietnam War, economic injustice, workplace injustice for Blacks and residential segregation.
“He was not just the 'I have a dream' guy,” Ford said. “To isolate him to one brief moment during his life is so disrespectful.”
Ford said King was called a communist and anti-American, and that some Black leaders abandoned him because of his continued focus on issues other than securing the right to vote for minorities.
“He was critical of the core of American society and politics,” she said.
Regarding whether U.S. culture would be different today had King not been gunned down at age 39 on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, both educators believe he would have continued his quest to lead society to equality.“I believe that Dr. King would have continued his powerful message that the past has a purpose,” Richardson said. “He would encourage us to study the past to pull out principles, beliefs and tactics.”Ford said she would like to think King would have solved racism and the other issues in the United States, but she pointed out that civil rights activists U.S. Rep. John Lewis and Rosa Parks were active in their missions until they died in old age.“We have these amazing activists involved in the Civil Rights Movement who lived, but they faced such incredible barriers and challenges,” Ford said.While some say King would not have supported today's Black Lives Matter movement, Ford thinks he would still be militant as an old man while condemning violence.“King said, 'Riots are the language of the unheard,'” she said. “I think he would try to understand and come from a place of what he called 'radical love.'”
Richardson said King would continue to stand against apathy and indifference today, and would encourage all Americans to do the same.“Hate and bigotry, while they exist, if the majority of individuals are silent, that silence sometimes can be interpreted as being complicit,” she said.Ford said one of the most important reasons for having an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day is to acknowledge histories that have been erased.“Envision it as not just his day, but a day for all the people who have been fighters for racial justice,” she said.Richardson said she hopes those who enjoy Monday away from the workplace don't merely consider it a day off, but rather a “day on.”By that, she means Americans should consider the fight King undertook and his passion for the principle that all human beings are truly created equal.“Revisit the mission,” she said.
