What I want my students to understand about Martin Luther King, Jr.

President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Martin Luther King, Jr. at the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (By Yoichi Okamoto - Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum)

When we teach history, it’s easy to unwittingly imbue events with a sense of inevitability — of destiny.

After all, things happened the way they happened — the only forking paths we can create are imaginary, born of the “what ifs” that we ask ourselves.

It’s important to see that, at every step of the way, what we call history is the result of human activity. Individual human beings made choices, collectively creating movements or maintaining the status quo. Some choices are more influential than others, but change always comes from people making the decision to act.

When we consider someone like Martin Luther King, Jr., all but deified in the United States, it’s easy to get caught up in the magic of his brilliance and vision and legacy. From his impassioned oratory to his charismatic leadership to his apparent fearlessness, he is larger than life. He’s exactly what the midcentury United States needed to finally discard Jim Crow and mandate equal rights to all. He was the voice of truth and the inspirational leader that could speak to the struggles of African-American people and empower them to act.

But to frame it that way is to suggest that everything from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the “I Have a Dream” speech to the march on Selma to King’s assassination was predestined. It wasn’t.

Whenever I have the opportunity to talk about Dr. King, I try to help my students understand that he wasn’t a politician. He wasn’t royalty. He had no special credentials besides that which he earned through hard work, the way the rest of us do. He chose himself. At great personal cost, he stepped up to lead a movement that changed lives and changed the world.

He didn’t have to do it. He could have stayed in Atlanta and served his community as an urban pastor. Instead, he made a series of uncomfortable and dangerous choices that took him away from a quiet life and toward the cause of justice.

Every other individual who has a prominent monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. — Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, and Washington himself — was an American president. Not King. He was a private citizen, not a public servant. Yet he dedicated his life to service. Any of us could make the same choice.

I want my students to see that they, too, could work to advance a cause they believe in. They, too, could learn to speak eloquently in a way that inspires others to act. They, too, can fight against injustice. They, too, could participate in changing the world. We all could.

On this day, when celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., let us remember this great man. Let’s also remember that he became great through his actions. He had no special powers and no special destiny. He simply made things happen. So can we.