Consul General Speeches

Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute and Dinner, Van der Valk Hotel, Wassenaar, The Netherlands, January 27, 2008

Good evening.  On behalf of Ambassador Roland Arnall, and all of my diplomatic colleagues serving in The Netherlands, it is an honor for me to share this evening with you.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an extraordinary American who, through his faith, his words, and his actions, irrevocably changed the course of his nation’s history.  He has had an incalculable influence now on several generations of people in the United States.   Yet his eloquence and his relentless commitment to the nonviolent struggle against injustice spread far beyond the borders of the United States.   His “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” served as a clarion call for the modern age for the peaceful repudiation of unjust laws and served as a light of both hope and purpose to those living under oppression.  The eloquence and the passion of his appeals to end segregation in the U.S. and seek an end to discrimination have reverberated to the far corners of the world.

I lived in London for a time, and remember once walking by Westminster Abbey on a fall afternoon.  This most venerated of British national shrines has a special statue carved above the door on the west front.  Yes, it’s Martin Luther King standing among 9 other modern statues of men and women who sacrificed their lives for their beliefs.

Statues, monuments, commemorations all have their place in honoring this remarkable man.  More important, however, is that Dr. King’s message of change through nonviolent means lives on – that it lives on in the beating hearts of each and every one of us.  In our minds, in our souls, and in our own dreams for a better, more enlightened world to savor during the time we are granted, and to pass to our children.

It’s rather a lofty expectation to think of yourself as someone who can affect change in the manner or at the magnitude that Martin Luther King Jr.  was able to achieve.  Yet I think Dr. King would not have us think otherwise.  I think it is important that we remember the totality of his life:  one of great struggle, but also one of great certainty.   In addition to racial injustice, he fought on during the last years of his life against poverty and what he viewed as an unjust war.  It is a great comfort to the causes of justice and human dignity that most schoolchildren know exactly who you are talking about when you quote from, “I Have a Dream.”  The best way to honor his contributions is not only to follow in his footsteps but to forge our own paths – to use those talents and gifts that we have to make our own contributions to a more just society, a more peaceful world.

One of my favorite phrases in Dr. King’s speech at the 1963 March on Washington comes when he reminds those assembled that they had come to the heart of the nation’s capital “to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.”

This to me is the essence of Dr. King’s legacy:  that it is within each of us to grasp the urgency of the issues of our time and use each day to work to address them.  To understand that each age has it challenges and opportunities and that helping our nation live up to its original creed is likely the work of a lifetime.  To convert that “fierce urgency of Now” into action.  Action against injustice in all its forms.  Action against ignorance.  And action for the fulfillment of Dr. King’s living dream.