King's Legacy Benefits All Americans

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who would have been 80 years old on January 15, is hailed for his work as a civil rights leader. However, observances of the holiday celebrating his birthday, which this year falls on January 19, often fail to acknowledge that King's vision for America included the realization that all Americans, whatever their ethnicity, deserve an equal chance to make a decent living for themselves and their families. King held that everyone should have the opportunity to learn new skills that lead to better paying jobs, and everyone who does the same work deserves the same pay.

By the time of his journey to Memphis, Tennessee in April 1964, where that city's black sanitation workers had gone on strike seeking the same pay and conditions as their white colleagues, King had moved on from fighting—through peaceful means—for racial equality to demanding social and economic opportunity for all Americans. His "I have a dream" speech spoke to more than racial equality. It embodied his vision of an America where every person can attain the highest position his or her qualifications merit.

King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for truly embodying the spirit of peace and justice for all. He met violence with dignity and graciousness that helped him achieve goals of astonishing significance by means of a force that proved thousands of times more powerful than fire hoses, police dogs and the bullet that ended his life on the balcony of a Memphis hotel room, on Apr. 4, 1968.

Because Martin Luther King Jr. believed that all Americans deserve an equal chance to be all that they have the potential to be, today, 80 years after his birth and almost 41 years after his death we live in an America that offers all its citizens a vast range of nearly unlimited possibilities. How we choose to avail ourselves of those possibilities is up to each one of us. On next Monday, January 19, it would be fitting that we pause for at least a moment to reflect on the debt we owe to the man who was among those most responsible for making this a land of opportunity for all.