By Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jake Richmond
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2015 – Defense Department members
gathered today at the Pentagon’s annual observance of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.’s birthday, ahead of the federal holiday.
Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work called King a “true,
remarkable American patriot and hero” and said he was honored to help pay
tribute to the late civil rights leader.
“The most fitting way to honor Dr. King’s legacy is not just
to celebrate this holiday or to celebrate his achievements, but to act on his
word in what we do every day in the service of our nation,” Work said.
King, who would have been 86 today, was assassinated in
1968, less than four years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his
leadership of nonviolent civil disobedience in the advancement of civil rights.
A Proponent of Peace
Joining the deputy secretary to give the event’s keynote
speech was Navy Adm. Michelle Howard, vice chief of naval operations. In 1999,
Howard became the first African-American woman to command a combatant ship in
the U.S. Navy, and in 2014, she became the first woman to rise to the rank of
four-star admiral.
“Not only did [King] peacefully bring society through some
of the most complicated and charged social upheavals of American history, but
he also fostered change in the very hearts and minds of the American people,”
Howard said.
Howard called King one of the greatest leaders the country
has ever seen and recounted several of his most memorable words. Quoting King,
she said “if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t
fit to live” and “a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a motor
of consensus.”
The admiral praised King for convincing so many that people
work better together and for “overwhelming the status quo” with consistent,
concentrated and insistently righteous perseverance.
Inclusiveness and Restraint
“He pushed both black and white citizens to look beyond
themselves, beyond their comfort zones, habits or beliefs, to something bigger
and better for all of us," Howard said. “He rose above the pain and he
taught his followers to demand the moral high ground … these lessons of
inclusiveness and restraint are some of the hardest concepts throughout human
history.”
For that reason, the admiral explained, it is even more
important for Americans to continue to observe and remember Dr. King for the
things he did and the principles he stood for.
“Today, as we honor this great American,” Work said, “let us
also reflect on what we can do, each and every one of us in this room,
throughout the Pentagon, throughout the armed services of our great nation, to
further the struggle for human freedom and dignity that Dr. King helped to lead
and for which he ultimately gave his life.”
King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was
established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.
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