January 12, 2007

“Everybody can be great because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle or Einstein’s theory of relativity . . . to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A Soul generated by love.”  -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Washington, DC)—Monday is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day in which most of us sleep in a little longer, spend time with kids, relax and think at some point in the mid-afternoon, “Boy I’m glad I’m not at work.”

But, in 1994, Congress designated the King holiday as something more than a day off of work. Even something more than a day to reflect on Dr. King. In 1994, Martin Luther King Day was designated the National Day of Service.  It seems so appropriate, to celebrate someone who gave so much by encouraging all of us to give back to our communities.

Many of you may not know this, but I was sent to Kansas City by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as a civil rights organizer.  To the giants of the civil rights movement, I was a wide-eyed eager kid at the time. And, honestly, throughout the years I was still always a kid in their eyes.

They had all lived a lifetime before I became a part of the movement. Dr. King, their first President, had been killed. Dr. Abernathy, my mentor and the founder of the SCLC, had become President after the tragedy. Dr. Abernathy’s church and home had been bombed during the organizing of the group and Mrs. Corretta Scott King had lost her husband.

From the Montgomery bus boycott on, this group of men and women had carried the weight of the civil rights movement on their shoulders. To them I was a kid.
 

My religious tradition teaches that our faith can redeem us.  That the sacrifices of individuals can sustain us and that moral courage can guide us.  Dr. King and those who followed him dedicated themselves to what remains the most difficult challenge we face as human beings and Americans: closing the great gap between our words and our deeds.
 

Our nation still mourns the loss of Dr. King and, sadly, with each passing year, we face the loss of more giants who shaped our nation.  This year it was President Gerald Ford. What was so often overlooked is Ford the legislator and his civil leadership in government.  In the wake of Watergate, during the height of the Vietnam War, then Majority Leader Hale Boggs and Minority Leader Gerald Ford, who were the best of friends, would share a cab together to the National Press Club for nightly debates. In spite of their numerous philosophical differences, Boggs and Ford would ride together, choosing a topic for a debate on the way, and then return together to continue the business of Congress. They were friends, leaders, and compatriots, who recognized, as Dr. King did when he walked through Selma, ideology shapes a movement, but does not negate the individual.

So, we come to another Martin Luther King Day, and ask, what have we done to make this world a gentler place? As Dr. King said, “Life’s urgent and most pressing question is, what are you doing for others?” I urge you to serve others in your own way on Monday. After all, we all can be great, because we all can serve.

Emanuel Cleaver, II

Member of Congress

Emanuel Cleaver, II is the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes Kansas City, Independence, Lee's Summit, Raytown, Grandview, Sugar Creek, Belton, Raymore and Peculiar, Missouri. He is a member of the exclusive House Financial Services Committee.