MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: Celebrating Dr. King Through Serving
by Marian Wright Edelman, NNPA
January 19, 2006
"If you want to be important-wonderful. If you want to be recognized-wonderful. If you want to be great-wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that 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 your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love."
These well-known words are from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sermon "The Drum Major Instinct," delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on February 4, 1968. In his sermon, Dr. King was explaining that we all start out with the ingrained instinct to be "drum majors:" everyone wants to be important, to be first, to lead the parade. Watch a group of children try to form a line, and right away you'll see this instinct in action. But too many people never outgrow this instinct, Dr. King said, and by constantly struggling to be the best and most important or wealthiest or best-educated we forget one of the Gospels' and life's largest truths: the real path to greatness is through service.
It's a key lesson to remember, and it's also a key piece of what we should be teaching our children about Dr. King. Many of them have just studied Dr. King's life in school in the days leading up to Dr. King's birthday, and many young people have learned to see Dr. King as a history book hero-a larger-than-life, mythical figure. But it's crucial for them to understand Dr. King wasn't a superhuman with magical powers. They need to be reminded he was a real person, just like all of the other ministers, parents, and neighbors in the community, and like the all of the familiar adults in their lives today.
I first heard Dr. King speak in person at a Spelman College chapel service during my senior year in college. Dr. King was just 31 but he had already gained a national reputation during the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott five years earlier. He became a mentor and friend. Although I do remember him as a great leader and a hero, I also remember him as someone able to admit how often he was afraid and unsure about his next step. But faith prevailed over fear, uncertainty, fatigue, and sometimes depression. It was his human vulnerability and ability to rise above it that I most remember. He was an ordinary man who made history because he was willing to stand up and serve and make a difference in extraordinary ways as did the legion of other civil rights s/heroes in the 1950s and 1960s. We need to teach our children every day that they can and must make a difference, too. "Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve."
Towards the end of his sermon on "The Drum Major Instinct," Dr. King told the congregation that like many people, he sometimes thought about his own death and funeral. He said when the day came; he didn't want people to talk about his Nobel Prize or his degrees or hundreds of awards. The first thing he wanted someone to say about him was "that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others." Dr. King didn't know just how soon that day would come. He was assassinated two months to the day after giving that sermon. But a recording of "The Drum Major Instinct" was played at his funeral, and many people think of the moving words in Dr. King's voice as his own eulogy. He knew how he wanted to be remembered. "If I Can Help Somebody Along the Way" was his favorite song.
That is why Americans are now urged to celebrate the holiday honoring Dr. King as "a day on, not a day off," and to use his birthday to come together for community service and action. But we shouldn't wait for the holiday to come back around to remember and honor him this way. We can honor Dr. King's legacy best by serving every day and standing together to build a movement to realize Dr. King's dream - America's dream.
Marian Wright Edelman is President and Founder of the Children's Defense Fund and its Action Council whose mission is to Leave No Child Behind and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
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Sunday, January 22nd 2006 at 7:07PM
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