The document discusses reflections on Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy and continuing the movement towards racial equity. It draws parallels between Dr. King's work and aspects of the dance performance "Revelations" by Alvin Ailey. Some key points made include that core strength and values allow one to extend outwards and rise up with confidence, and that in challenging times one can re-center by curling inward to reground before shifting forward again, just as the moral arc bends towards justice over the long run. The performance and Dr. King's legacy both demonstrate the importance of persistence, grace and re-centering to continue progressing towards the goal of racial equity.

1. Ben Hecht
Ihave realized that I have been one of those White Americans, truly
believing that my race-neutral approach and earnest commitment to
‘fair play and steady growth towards a middle-class Utopia’ would
actually work. It doesn’t and hasn’t even through all of the years that I
was sincerely hoping that it would. On this celebration of Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s 89th birthday, I am optimistic about the growing
number of white people and leaders, like myself, who finally are
realizing that a ‘sincere commitment to justice’ requires much more.
It requires you to take off your rose colored glasses, admit your own
complicity in this deception and to run, don’t walk, to make up for lost
time.

2. Joan Springs
When I read the passages, as well as most of Dr. King’s spoken words I’m
reminded how far we’ve come and yet how much further we must go in order
to fully entrench equality across the board. The problem of equality spans
across not only our country but basically across the world and although we’re
not going to be able to make a worldwide change at this time, we can attempt
to bring about some change in our country. Beginning within our own
communities, we as a whole need to continue bringing about awareness to
those not already supporting that equal justice for blacks would in turn bring
about inclusive economic growth, resulting in gains for all, white, black, Native
people, etc.
On this year’s celebration of Dr. King’s birth I am personally thoughtful as to
how I as an individual can make an impact, a change, which would move this
work forward and make life better for many people who deserve to be on an
equal playing field.

3. Shanee Helfer
As a third generation Holocaust survivor, I know that the reason my family
and I exist today is because there were the few who broke their silence and
brought the majority to realize "we must speak" as Dr. King says in his
speech. All movements begin with the few and it is in the power of people,
love and words that movements can sustain themselves and grow to become
a majority who change the future for people, community and nations.
I carry with me the responsibility to speak in order to ensure the oppression
my family was saved from and liberty we have been given does not end with
us. Rather it is my voice and the voices that join me who become the
continuation of this movement to ensure the liberty I have is provided to all. It
is my responsibility to not only speak but to also bring along those who are
uncertain if they should speak.
I speak as an immigrant. I speak as a white woman. I speak because I know
that a few voices can become a movement speaking out and taking action
against oppression and creating liberty for all people of our nation and world.

4. Living Cities Team Member
Often times, Dr. King’s speeches and writing are mischaracterized and
he is made out to be a rhetorical teddy bear of sorts. In a lot of ways,
his legacy has been whitewashed, and his perceived pacifism is used to
silence people of color that deviate from respectability when addressing
white supremacy. I think [Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community]
amongst a lot more of his writing and sermons does away with that
erroneous notion. It is a brutal, bold and honest indictment of America
that if you’re paying attention, was really not unusual for him. In
another one of his most important writing, Letter from a Birmingham
Jail, Dr. King states "We know through painful experience that freedom
is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the
oppressed."
Consideration of his commitment to non-violent resistance is often
abbreviated to just non-violence. Let us always remember that Dr. King
was a revolutionary and the core of his work was resistance.

5. Joseph Sutkowi
Ifell in love with Detroit in 2008 in a sociology course on the city’s history. For three years in
college and five years after, much of my academic and professional life aimed at improving
conditions in the city through community development, physical improvements, the arts and
education, and by exposing middle class millennials to the city. If the city improved,
eventually, slowly, that would serve all of the city’s residents. The rising tide would be
enough.
But the rise was of two Detroits - a growing and gentrifying White midtown and downtown,
and a still struggling periphery. The rising tide theory is decidedly disproven. But it was
leaders here (and by “leaders” I imply more than just title or rank) that have helped me
realize not just the importance but the imperative of working specifically toward outcomes
for people of color. Midtown and downtown weren’t enough. A career focused on
combating poverty and building opportunity for mobility writ large is not enough. We must
address race.
I believed in the middle-class utopia that Dr. King warned against 51 years ago. I thought I
was an ally - that I was on the same team, but in reality I was sitting on the bench. He had
warned three years before that the contented “white moderate” was a bigger stumbling
block to justice than the KKK. That was me. Now it’s not.
“Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have
almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his
stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the
white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative
peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” -
Letter from Birmingham City Jail (1963)
.

6. Jess Fontaine
On “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community.”
This is the root of every white “ah-ha” moment. Advantages such as support for
higher education, ability to start retirement funds, and the security of senior care are
all assumptions for hard working, middle class Americans. However, the foundation
and capacity of these advantages are derived from accumulated wealth, the financial
margins generated over generations within (specifically white) families. Thus, the
absence of disadvantage leads young, white generations to assume their
circumstance as everyone’s circumstance – if they are treated fairly at their start,
everyone must also be receiving the same treatment at their own starts. They then
see the “difference in results” as “difference in decisions/efforts” and sink into MLK’s
“comfortable vanity,” seeing people of color as people who made different decisions
or exerted different effort resulting in their current economic status.
When whites realize their inherited wealth and the role it has played in their
situation, it cracks the initial variable of the equation – that we all start the same –
and opens the gates for a flood of “ah-ha”s highlighting their well-intentioned beliefs
in racial justice as a fantasy hindering the hope for racial harmony.

7. Jeff Raderstrong
The “Our God Marching” speech has one of my favorite exchanges between Dr. King and his
congregation. At the end, there is a call and response of “How long? Not long” in which King
encourages people to not give up the fight, because the justice they seek will be upon them soon.
While invigorating, this exchange has always contained a conflicting message for me. King is
saying that racial justice is near, yet we know that over 40 years after this speech, the work
continues. He also integrates one of my favorite quotes into this call and response, saying that
justice is near, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. One
could read this and think King was telling us--don't worry, this will all work itself out.
But I think taking the question of “How long?” in conjunction with the opening anecdote of the
woman who chose not to take a ride because “my feets is tired but my soul is rested,” makes me
wonder if King wasn’t talking about time in the corporeal sense, but instead in the absolute moral
sense of desired end point. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it does bend toward justice,
because justice is the moral destination. How long? as a question isn’t so much about the time it
takes, but rather, the ultimate aim of the journey. Like the woman walking with her soul rested,
her journey is secondary to her destination. She has justice on her side, so the journey can be as
long as it needs to be. Because she lives the values she seeks, she has already reached her
destination in her soul.
So, I think “How long? Not long” is at the same time a brilliant acknowledgement of the struggle
that King’s congregation faced, that we face, but also the recognition that the struggle has already
been won if we can live in justice regardless of what others will do. That doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t work to bend the arc faster, and make the distance shorter, and offer tired women a
ride regardless of how rested their soul is, but that we can be energized knowing our destination
is there, waiting for us. With that knowledge, the longest journey doesn’t seem that long.

8. Marlon Williams
My reflection to Dr. King’s pieces takes me to the “I Wanna Be Ready” section of Alvin
Ailey’s dance performance Revelations (Also, I recommend that everyone watch the full
Revelations performance if you ever need food for your soul.)
My quick reflections and this performance, Dr. King’s legacy and continuing the movement
towards racial equity.
• Core Strength: This piece is an impressive display of core strength serving as the
foundation and re-centering element of the dancers movements. The opening
sequence reminds me of how our core strength and values is what allows us to extend
outwards and to rise up with confidence, persistence and grace.
• Re-Centering: Similarly, in moments when the dancers movements retreat, they come
back to that core strength, curling inward to reground, before shifting the trajectory of
motion back outward and forward. Dr. King stated that the "The arc of the moral
universe is long, but it bends towards justice."”. These movements remind me that the
journey has and continues to be long, that we get tired or pushed back along the way,
but it is the core strength of our values and vision that allows us to persist and move
forward.
• Urgency of the Work: The lyrics of the song (“I want to be ready”) provide a powerful
context for the movements. The words ask us to reflect on what can we do in our work
and life today to push and pull ourselves towards a world of greater equity. The lyrics
and the lyrical motion of the dancer speaks to the urgency of contemporary action, the
immediacy of the now that is needed in each of our personal journey to arrive with “my
feets is tired but my soul is rested.”
.

9. Matt Baer
When I read the line from “A Time to Break the Silence:” “Peace and civil rights
don’t mix,” and the questions Dr. King received about whether focusing on
ending the war was really the concern of a civil rights leader… it makes me think
about the perceived/imagined conflict some see today between the
contemporary civil rights issues of our time and looming global issues like
nuclear deterrence, income inequality, etc. In political terms, we hear this as the
supposed struggle within liberalism… “interest group politics” vs. “broader
economic issues everyone can relate to.” Democrats supposedly lose elections
because they pursue the former at the expense of the latter. I know I’ve been
guilty of this kind of thinking… it’s a convenient explanation for things
sometimes.
Dr. King gives us the right answer to this puzzle: that these visions and values
are not in opposition, but are part of the same struggle. “In a real sense all life is
inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a
single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I
can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can
never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-
related structure of reality.” Our liberations are truly bound together.
.

10. Nadia Owusu
Here’s a quote from a letter that Dr. King wrote to his wife Coretta:
"I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory
than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its
relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, to block the trade
monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems it falls victim to the very thing it
was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought
about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes."
As is often the case with great Black leaders, Dr. King’s legacy is often whitewashed. We
rarely acknowledge that, at the time, he was considered by many to be dangerous. The
FBI looked for dirt on him and harassed him and his family. The media made of him a
villain.
Today, we talk about him in warm and fuzzy terms, but the truth is that he was a radical.
He opposed the War in Vietnam as dangerous militarism and imperialism. He called for
a “radical redistribution of economic and political power.” When he said that he
opposed capitalism, he was naming the reality that systems are not neutral. They are
imbued with the values of the people who created them and who power them. Still,
today, we have as a nation been largely unwilling to have a conversation about how to
make capitalism inclusive and ‘useful.’ I believe that honoring Dr. King should include a
more honest and thoughtful wrestling with his ideas, even the ones that make us
uncomfortable. We cannot talk about his Dream without talking about what the man
himself believed it would take to make it real.
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