Celebrating MLK for the First Time in my Career (2021)
By: Daniel E. Williams
Tags: Framework, Martin Luther King, Bhm, MLK, Black History Month

Sitting for a portrait at Atlanta University, circa 1963: Source: Howard Sochurek / Getty Images

Last year, amidst protests against police brutality and the murders of unarmed Black Americans, Pariveda embarked on a journey to take a stand against systemic racism. In December, the Anti-Racism Task Force announced a set of recommendations to address and reverse systemic racism within our walls. Today, I would like to highlight a decision made last summer to officially recognize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday as a company holiday. It is with great pleasure that I now have the opportunity to celebrate, with all of my fellow Fins, Dr. King’s extraordinary place in American history for the first time in my career.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 1929 — April 4, 1968

(39 years old)

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. King was a child prodigy, skipping the 9th and 11th grades of high school and entering Morehouse College in 1944 at the age of 15. At 19, he received a bachelor’s degree in sociology. At the age of 25 in 1954, King heeded the call to religion and became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. King received his doctorate in theology from Boston University in the summer of 1955. In December of that year, the Montgomery Improvement Association’s older ministers elected Dr. King to be the Southern Christian Leadership Conference president and the boycott’s public face. This initiative was one of the sparks that ignited the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Dr. King was arrested over 30 times in 13 years for his efforts to achieve social and economic equality and break the stranglehold of Jim Crow laws and the country’s deep-rooted racism. Today, many present-day Americans undeniably view Dr. King with respect and admiration. However, after his assassination on April 4, 1968, a shocking 75% of Americans believed Dr. King brought his death upon himself. Today, many people share the same sentiment regarding police killings, civil rights, and calls for economic injustice.

The images of Dr. King that we see every year are predominantly associated with his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. However, lesser-known yet more impactful was his economic vision to address the legacy of slavery, the end of Reconstruction, and the savagery of Jim Crow laws. The part of his speech that people often forget was his statement that “African Americans had been given a blank check with Emancipation, but the check had come back marked “insufficient funds.” He went on to say, “When we come to Washington, we are coming to get our check.” Most people link his March on Washington to social justice, but the campaign sought equality before the law AND an economic bill of rights for impoverished black, brown, and white workers. During another speech in 1957, he condemned “the tragic inequalities of an economic system which takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.” According to a recent study, this promise, if executed, would have infused over $3 trillion of wealth into the U.S. economy and reduced or eliminated the wealth gap.

Since this is Pariveda and we love frameworks and models, I’ll share with you a simple but most acutely accurate definition of systemic racism I have ever seen: