Remembering Dr. King
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?” Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was a hot day on August 11, 1957, in the un-airconditioned Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, when the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke these now famous words mentioned above. According to Jarad Denton’s account, prior to saying this now well-known quote, King said:
“An individual has not begun to live until he can rise higher than the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of humanity. And this is one of the problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up victims of distorted and disrupted personality.”[1]
But King was not yet quite done, as he provided the prescription for this fundamental flaw of the human condition, self-centeredness, by saying:
“One of the best ways to rise above self-centeredness is to move away from self and objectify yourself in something outside of yourself. Find some cause and some great purpose, some loyalty to which you can give yourself and become so absorbed in that something that you give your life to it.”[2]
[1] “Life’s Most Persistent Question”, by Senior Airman Jarad A. Denton, 63rd Air base Wing Public Affairs, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, VA, December 17, 2012, Ibid
[2] “Life’s Most Persistent Question”, by Senior Airman Jarad A. Denton, 63rd Air base Wing Public Affairs, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, VA, December 17, 2012, Ibid