As Inauguration Day approaches, the media and pundits will overload themselves with references to Martin Luther King, Jr., whose holiday occurs the day before. They will discuss how proud Dr. King would be, how far America has come since the civil rights movement took on power in the 1960’s, and so on. They also will point out dissimilarities between Barack Obama and those who struggled through the movement.
However, chances are good they will miss the very point that Dr. King would make if he were still among us: Barack Obama is where he is because he an excellent community organizer and has dedicated his life to making our community, country, and world a better place. To be sure, his election as an African American is a wondrous event in American history and a tribute to the “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” of all those who went before him and on whose shoulders he stands – a testimonial to the arc of justice that Dr. King envisioned.
Dr. King would not be proud of his achievement simply as a racial breakthrough, but as someone who would pick up the path to the Promised Land that Dr. King, like Moses, could see, but not reach.
He would revel in Obama’s community organizing skills that rivaled his own. And he would delight in the sweet irony that, at the very moment Rudy Giuliani was mocking Obama at the Republican convention for being a “community organizer,” Obama was actually out-organizing Giuliani and his cohorts with an unprecedented and nearly flawless grassroots campaign.
But most of all, Dr. King would be pleased that someone would invoke his legacy to build up the best in America and strengthen the common good. Not only that someone like Obama would walk through the door that Dr. King had opened, but that someone like Obama would also try to bring others through it with him.
This is no paean to Obama himself – he has feet of clay like all of us, but it is praise for those like him who dedicate themselves and give years of their lives to serving others. Leaders like them inspire the rest of us to follow our better spirits. They teach us that life is not about individual aggrandizement, but about strengthening the human family.
The best President Bush could do after 9/11 was to tell Americans to go shopping. At time of crisis, he did not have the vision or soul to summon the best out of us to make America better, to help each other, to transform a moments of tragedy into a moment of triumph. Volunteerism at its shining best. Bush squandered that historical opportunity, and it was lost.
Obama is offering that opportunity again. Not only is it part and parcel of his speeches – and his address from Independence Hall about race in our country, but it how he wants Americans to respond to his election. His campaign, for example, over Michelle Obama’s name, sent an e-mail, asking everyone to give time to local food banks or other community service projects during the holidays. And part of inauguration weekend includes Saturday as a day of service. Not of partying, but helping the community.
Dr. King gave us the message with his life. Obama took his words seriously. Now, it’s our turn.
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Harrington is director of The Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit foundation that promotes civil rights and economic and racial justice throughout Texas.
