Dear Friends, Colleagues, and Co-Conspirators,

Honor King’s Full Legacy

King’s legacy is more than a dream speech. King had radical ideas. Radical enough to have the audacity to hope. Extreme enough to believe that people with the most racist beliefs can have their convictions changed by radical love. King’s radical love was his courageous faith in the divine morality that compels people to build or restore relationships.

King’s humanity was complicated. King was a flawed and imperfect person. He was full of frailties, hopes, dreams, and love. We must honor the person, not just the myth, to honor his entire legacy. Mythologized parts of King’s legacy can be rabbit holes of quips and quotes on the interwebs, often redlining the radical out of King; other parts are merchandised for cultural amnesia and/or marketed for political consumption.

King’s legacy is the love and transformation he left behind. King’s day reminds us that the movement is marching on for the struggle to get to the Promised Land. For many, King’s day is a day on, not off. To paraphrase a civil rights matriarch, “Social justice is the job of each of us. Justice is for the living.” The struggle goes on, and King’s people march on. Be inspired by King’s entire legacy to aspire to overcome flaws and failures and rise to our best future. Be in service, however that looks.

I don’t know if I will get there with you, but my people will get to the Promise Land.

Martin Luther King, I’ve Been to the Mountain Top, April 3, 1968

Randy Corradine (he/him)
Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at YouthCare