Michael Steele: Dr. King’s Perseverance

The importance of Dr. King’s contributions cannot be over-stated or diminished by the lapse of time. His fight for the freedom, equality, and dignity of all races and peoples remains as important today as it was on April 4, 1968, the day he was killed.

So, as we reflect on this man of history, I hope we appreciate Dr. King’s courage, vision, strength, humanity, but most importantly, his perseverance.

Dr. King’s perseverance transformed him; it made him not just a legendary leader, it signals to us in these times the challenge remains to “take up the cause of freedom”.

Perseverance enabled Dr. King not only to achieve success, but to achieve his dream; a that dream that draws us even today; a dream that embodied the civil rights movement but importantly, a dream that created a legacy for future generations;

Dr. King’s efforts helped close a chapter in America’s history, a chapter which chronicled the burden of slavery and institutionalized discrimination. A chapter which imprinted segregated public accommodations and schools on the very soul of African American life.

A chapter in which the foundation of America—freedom and equality—was rocked by water hoses, police dogs and racism.

However, Dr. King also knew that this movement towards civil rights would open a new chapter for America—a chapter we are still writing today; a chapter steeped in hope, opportunity and true equality.

But, for many this new chapter, which reflects America’s journey from slavery to emancipation; from Jim Crow to affirmative action also, belies an accomplished agenda.

The illiterate, the suffering, the addicted, the homeless—they demand more from our generation than nice words or one more government program.

What they demand, and what you and I must provide is an opportunity to heal and to teach, to turn dreams into reality and hope into action for the kid growing up on the streets instead of in a home; for the family struggling to make ends meet; for the teacher mired in paperwork while her students are mired in a failing school.

Thurgood Marshall once said, that “none of us has gotten where we are solely by pulling ourselves up from our bootstraps. We got here because somebody bent down and helped us.”

From the middle passage to “legacy wealth” we did not survive nor succeed on our own: somebody bent down and helped us.

The next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs in business, education, science, and industry are counting on us to still believe the dream is alive for them.

They look to us to bend down and to help them not only survive, but to succeed as generations before bent down for us. Thank you Dr. King.