The Beloved Community and The Promise of Arkansas

As I reflect on his life and legacy, I can’t help but think of what Dr. King might say today. What he might impart on us right here in Arkansas. My reflection feels special to me because Dr. King and I share a common set of life experiences.

We both lived in the same on-campus dorm — Graves Hall. We both heard lectures in the same chapel — Sale Hall Chapel. We both immersed ourselves in the wisdom of an iconic leader — Benjamin E. Mays. We were both refined in the fire of the school on the red clay hill — Morehouse College.

We both made the journey north to Boston for graduate school. As Morehouse Men, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and I were always going to be bound into ties more brotherly.

These ties, and paths we chose, leave me with a deep sense of connection to King, and I hear his words in my ear and feel the pull of his Beloved Community on my life. His spirit is here, reminding me to be a better preacher, a better leader, a better man. Dr. King Jr., and the paths we share, are what still my hand when I am lied about and my first impulse is to strike back. His words lift me when I am weary. His life reminds me to be steadfast, honest, and true.

But, despite our shared heritage, his words do not just belong to me. His vision of a Beloved Community is not one that only I can hold. His memory has kept us all aiming for that same Beloved Community: a society based on justice, equal opportunity, and a creative and redemptive love for one’s fellow human beings.

King was also a disturber of the peace. Raised during a time of segregation, the “poll tax”, and lynchings, he confronted the Jim Crow South in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and from the Birmingham Jail. His followers were beaten and attacked by dogs. King’s dying work was planning a Poor People’s March on Washington. His example reminds me to be courageous and righteous for a cause that is just.

That brings us to today. On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we should do more than take a day off, or quote his “I Have a Dream” speech on Instagram. We should remember his whole story. The Dr. King who opposed the Vietnam War and who stood with the striking sanitation workers in Memphis. We should celebrate King’s legacy while acknowledging the challenges that exist in our time. We should spend the holiday as Dr. King would have done himself, by agitating and speaking up for what’s right.

Here in my state the Arkansas MLK Jr. Commission has chosen former Governor Mike Huckabee as the Interfaith Breakfast speaker. Rather than question the choice I encourage Huckabee to use the occasion and the platform to confront the status quo and the disparities we live with in Arkansas. That’s what Dr. King would have done.

According to Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, today, “poverty rates are higher for Black children at 39 percent and Latino children at 27 percent than they are for White children at 16 percent.” We should talk about why. We should talk about redlining, criminal justice reform, education, healthcare, and yes, voting rights.

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, the best way to honor Dr. King is to talk about what racial and social justice means in the present day. It’s to talk about the future and the Promised Land Dr. King prophesized in Memphis. As King once said, “the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community.” That’s our work here on this Earth. In King’s words, “This will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”

As such, I choose to make qualitative and quantitative changes by continuing the work, and the fight, to realize the Promise of Arkansas. Realizing the Promise of Arkansas is how we actualize the Beloved Community and that is where I want my energies focused. But I can hear you asking, what is the Promise of Arkansas?

The Promise of Arkansas is the Faith that together we can address our challenges. It is the Hope that unified we make space for each to live out our unique potential. It is the Hard Work of qualitative change in our souls and quantitative change in our lives. It is that and so much more.

The Promise of Arkansas is every family having access to high quality Pre-K. It is every child reading by third grade. It is out of school support networks that give each student what they need academically and socially. It is every high school graduate being given the option to attend an Arkansas college or trade school without paying a dime. It is strong, affordable technical and trade schools and equally strong adult education certification programs. The Promise of Arkansas is attracting and retaining the world’s best educators because we support and pay them their worth. It is that and so much more.

The Promise of Arkansas is every home having access to affordable, high quality, high speed Broadband. It is clean water systems and safe bridges. It is drivable roads for truck drivers (like my grandfather) to transport agricultural products across the state and around the nation. It is improved, kid-centered foster care infrastructure. It is a patient-centered healthcare system of hospitals, nursing homes, community-based care, in-home care, and telehealth that is connected, supported, and working on behalf of Arkansas families. The Promise of Arkansas is bolstering financial technology accelerators, building agricultural technology accelerators, transformation transportation systems, and revolutionizing supply chain models. It is that and so much more.

The Promise of Arkansas is every community being within reach of sustaining wage Jobs. It is Main Street mom and pop shops receiving comprehensive support. It is public-private partnerships that create multiple points of synergy throughout municipalities. It is attracting large scale employers who bring higher wages and direct community investments. The Promise of Arkansas is easing the financial burden on teachers, firefighters, EMT’s, and police who are the financial and cultural lifeblood of every city and town. It is that and so much more.

The Promise of Arkansas makes us ask ourselves the hardest questions: Why can’t we end homelessness? What stops us from having high-speed rail across our state? Why do our neighbors have to die of drug addiction? What if we created hubs of innovation in every region? What if we decriminalized poverty? Why don’t we create a more just justice system?

The Promise of Arkansas admonishes us to ask those questions and then pushes us to go about the work.

I encourage my fellow Arkansans to spend the day reflecting on the qualitative and quantitative changes we can make ourselves. I encourage my fellow Arkansans to spend the day in service.

King famously once said that, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” He dedicated his life to answering that question. His achievements were qualitative (of the soul), and quantitative (the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act). In the end he died trying to create a Beloved Community. But he did not die in vain. So in his memory please ask yourself, “What am I doing for others?” After following in King’s footsteps in my youth, I try to follow his example today. I encourage you to do the same. I ask that you pray for all people, that they may feel the spirit that drove him, and that together we will keep pushing towards his Beloved Community and towards our Promise of Arkansas.

Our future deserves it.

God Bless each of you.