MLK Jr.'s message challenges LI

Michael Dawidziak is a political consultant and pollster.

Monday was Martin Luther King Day. Most people were aware of this because it is a national holiday and they were off from work or school. It is unfortunate that the martyred civil rights leader has suffered the same fate as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln: Too many people mark the days named in their honor more by shopping than by remembering their lives and accomplishments. In the case of all three, America and the world are different places because they lived. They left legacies that will never be erased.

Like George Washington's "Farewell Address" or Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" and Second Inaugural Address, King's 1963 "Letter From Birmingham Jail" or his "I Have a Dream" speech should be read and studied by all Americans who say they believe in liberty, justice and freedom. Sadly, most Americans have no idea what any of these landmark masterpieces of American history has to say.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a preacher and a peaceful warrior. His methods should be scrutinized for emulation in a world crying out for remedies against social injustice. Drawing inspiration from Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi, among others, King advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to shine a light on the inequalities of his day, which included discrimination in housing, employment and voting rights. Television images showed the courage of the 1960s protest marchers and freedom riders and changed American hearts and attitudes.

King backed up these actions with a fiery and intelligent dialogue. In a country then and still embroiled in an argument over separation of church and state, King was a model of how to bring religious values into a political debate and faith-based influence into the halls of government. As the Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of the Christian antipoverty group Sojourners, likes to put it, "He did it with his Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other."

Combining elements of the two, King put forward arguments that were irrefutable. While affirming the separation of church and state, he denied the segregation of the two. He combined legal arguments based on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with moral imperatives for these arguments from the Bible, including the instruction in Matthew 25 to care for the least among us.

The pulpit was his public square and the public square was his pulpit. The relevance today of King's methods, as well as his message, can hardly be missed. To dwell on his role as a civil rights leader and the successes of that movement to date diminishes his legacy. His message wasn't only for and about African-Americans. It was about equality for all races and all people. It was that we are all God's children and therefore brothers and sisters. It was - to draw from the Declaration of Independence - that all are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.

As we look around the world, our country and even our own neighborhoods here on Long Island, there is still much injustice. We still have housing segregation, as well as inequality in public education and in representation among our elected officials.

It is far easier to turn a blind eye to it all and instead pat ourselves on the back for how far we've come. As King stated in his "Letter From Birmingham Jail," "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." The challenge of King's legacy is to continue to shine the light on, confront and endeavor to change these social injustices.