Reflections on MLK Day

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King and Anne Frank were both born in 1929, barely six months apart. Anne Frank died in 1945 of typhus in Bergen Belson at age 15 and Martin Luther King died of gunshot wounds in 1968 in Memphis at age 39. Today they would be each be 91 years old.

Racism was ubiquitous throughout their lives. For Anne Frank and her family the enactment in 1935 of the Nuremberg Laws, which excluded German Jews from citizenship and prohibited them from marrying Germans, institutionalized a world already filled with antisemitic propaganda. Martin Luther King’s world was not all that different: as a black person in the American South, he confronted segregation in his schooling, in restaurants, on busses, and in other public places.

Today as we reflect on the legacy of Martin Luther King, despair and anxiety might be our first response: a demonstrated rise in antisemitism, the cruelty of separating families at the southern border, ever-present gun violence, and a rise in racist rhetoric and violence has become a daily tragedy. Instead of despair, however, we must hold on to hope. Anne Frank and Martin Luther King provide inspiring examples of the importance of a single individual’s voice. We may never have heard Anne Frank’s speaking voice, but she left us her diary, with eloquent words about her desire to live in a world of freedom and tolerance. Martin Luther King was a gifted orator and he used his voice to organize rallies and marches in the hopes of bringing acceptance and equality to citizens of the United States. Their voices have resonated over the decades as beacons of hope and tolerance.

There is another hopeful voice that I always remember on Martin Luther King Day, that of Miriam Greenstein, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, who was also born in 1929. Miriam is a voice of indomitable courage. She spoke to thousands of school children over a three-decade period about her experiences during the Holocaust. In a talk to high school students months before she died in 2017, here is what she said:

“If you think somebody should do something than what about you? . . . get off your butt and start doing something about hatred and prejudice. Don’t let hatred go past you.”

What voice will you use to speak out against prejudice, antisemitism, racism, and bigotry?