Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Honoring a Servant

“Everybody can be great because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.” This is an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Everybody Can Be Great,” speech that he delivered February 4, 1968, just a few months prior to his death.

Service is defined as, the action of helping or doing work for someone.

It is widely known that Dr. King was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. What isn’t so commonly known is that the organization’s motto is, ‘First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend All.” Would that not be exactly what Dr. King’s actions depict? He fought for civil rights, he fought for labor rights, he fought for people.

While often MLK Day centers around the “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King’s legacy is much more than that. Many colleges and organizations use the holiday as a day of service. Gathering those ready and willing, to give back to their communities. That is the essence of who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was. A servant.

We hope that you take the upcoming holiday and use it as a moment to reflect on what you are doing that may be considered an act of service or maybe what you can start doing to incorporate service into your life.

We asked Healthfirst employees – who are involved with our Employee Resource Group, the Black Employee Inclusion Network – what Dr. King’s quote on service meant to them. Read some of their thoughts below and feel free to leave a comment sharing what service means to you.

Jacqueline Finch: “Each and every day, I am honored and blessed to live by his penetrating words, “A man who does not have something for which he is willing to die, is not fit to live” as the forefront of my humble edge in history in caring for my community.”

Nehemi Janvier: “Everyone regardless of pedigree was created with an infinite number of creativities, and when we bring forth that creativity we are, in some way, serving our fellow humans.”

Patrice Latimore: “You get the best performance when you are performing alongside your team, and you are the example.”

Rodney Wilson: “We should never need a reason to help or serve; you help or serve because of one reason. You CAN! No success is achieved alone.”