Martin Luther King Day

Today we honor Martin Luther King. Here’s one of my favorite lesser known quotes from Dr. King.

You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve......You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. (Martin Luther King, The Words of Martin Luther King, p. 17)

Some dates stick out to you when you are growing up. For me, one of those dates was April 4, 1968. We were leaving an open house at my school, Dresden Elementary in Chamblee, Georgia. It was early spring chilly as we all climbed into our red Rambler station wagon and my dad turned on the car. The news came to us through WSB AM, the only radio station I knew. Dr. Martin Luther King had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee.

For a nine year old white boy in the deep south, it was an unsettling moment. I didn’t know much about Dr. King or what he stood for, but my parents had taught me to respect him, just like they had taught me to root for Henry Aaron. I knew enough to know that not everyone around us thought well of Dr. King and the movement he represented. And we were white southerners in a white southern culture. So shock and grief were mixed with fear – fear of what might happen next in a very volatile country at the time.

I’m so grateful for my parents. What they said over those next few days helped settle the fears of a little boy who didn’t understand yet how evil works in the world, or how God works even evil for good. What they modeled helped that little boy understand that race doesn’t define a person, but character does. That’s the power of parenting. That’s the message of Dr. King. I’m grateful for both.