What Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words tell us about our civic duty

By T’wina Nobles

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a sword, a molder of possibility, and an igniter of change. His belief in community supported and steered the collective work that was the civil rights movement — work that has served as precedent and inspiration for continued community activation that our liberation requires.

Ahead of Monday, January 16th’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s life, we reflect on his words that remain a directive for how we understand and perform our civic and moral duty in support of our thriving and well-being, current and future. Here are three understandings of our civic engagement and responsibilities that come from his profound speeches and writings:

1. Any and every conversation about Black people’s civic responsibility should truthfully name who and what bars the full expression of it.

“So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others.”

— From the “Give Us the Ballot” speech in Washington, D.C.  (1957) 

Any and every conversation about Black people’s civic responsibility must truthfully name who and what bars the full expression of it. The contextual factors that limit the Black vote alluded to in Dr. King’s “Give Us the Ballot” speech shared eight years before the enactment of the Voting Rights Act mirror the racial inequities and structural challenges we still navigate. Cited in the Black Well-being report, for example, is the 2022 audit conducted by the Office of the Washington State Auditor, which reports that the votes of Black residents were rejected four times more often than their white counterparts.

A painful and extensive history underlies statistics like this that are reported from all over the country. This resource library cultivated by the Tacoma Community College hosts a collection of visual assets that highlights the ongoing struggle for voting rights throughout the country. This naming moves us forward, supporting us in understanding the barriers that exist, the disruption they require, and the organizing that entails.

2. Transformative civics education activates and nourishes civic duty.

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.”

— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Morehouse College’s Maroon Tiger newspaper (1947)

Education gives us the tools and wisdom to shape possibilities and make real solutions. Dr. King’s words, delivered in a powerful article on the technical and moral purpose of education, reflect how knowledge-building supports our work toward liberation. Transformative civics education, one of the community-identified approaches outlined in the Black Well-being report, builds an understanding of power and the totality of the Black experience.

These understandings give all of us in our communities, especially young people, the context to understand the needfulness of our collective work and the motivation to steer progress toward a world where we all can thrive. Continuing to prioritize education that ascribes our moral and civic duty to be good ancestors activates us as catalysts of change.

3. Together is the only way.

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

— From Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

We are the sum of our brilliance and inextricably tied to each other's fates. Dr. King’s famous words, taken from the 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail, remind us that what we co-engineer, make real, and sustain in the community impacts all of us and contributes to our shared prosperity for generations to come. With this month seeing the kickoff of a new legislative session led by one of the most diverse groups of legislators in Washington state history, we have an opportune moment to reflect on how we are exercising our civic power in the public space.

In the spirit of Dr. King, we challenge you to step fully into that power by tapping into and elevating these community-identified priorities supportive of Black well-being with your state and local government officials. Find out who your officials are here to start the work today.