Remembering King’s message of a job well done.

  • Published
  • By Capt. William W. Cooper, Jr.
  • 436th Airlift Wing Chaplain
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --   In 1995, I was a first-year theology student at Emory University in Atlanta. I had enrolled in a course that focused on the theology of Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr. In this class, students were challenged to contemplate Dr. King's perspective on civil and human rights. 

I quickly began to see not only how important Dr. King was to the civil rights movement but how important the philosophies of figures like India's Mohandas Ghandi were to Dr. King. I came to believe that Dr. King was a patriotic visionary who theorized how to create a better world after having studied and traveled extensively. 

Dr. King was highly visible nationally and worldwide, yet he worked hard to maintain his connection with common, everyday people. While completing a tour as a reservist at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, I served on a committee that was responsible for the commemoration service of Dr. King's birthday last year. We were fortunate to have two nationally known speakers visit the base to speak about their knowledge of and actual friendship with Dr. King. Noted poet and professor Nikki Giovanni and civil rights activist Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles spoke of Dr. King as a highly intelligent man with the ability to effectively relate and communicate with extraordinary and ordinary people. 

Dr. King has become a historic and legendary figure today in part because of his famous speeches in which he referenced the mountain top and his great dream, but after the talks given last year by those who knew him, I thought of one of the quotes that I first read in the King theology class. It is often referred to as the 'Street sweeper' quote. 

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry," Dr. King once declared. "He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." 

Prior to studying theology, I heard of Dr. King's great dream. I even marveled at musical compositions by Beethoven and a few of the classic writings of Shakespeare. But it was not until the year following my course, when I visited the Vatican in Rome, that I began to understand the true vision of the dreamer. 

When I stood in the midst of the Sistine chapel, I experienced awe similar to that implied by Dr. King. I witnessed firsthand one of the world's great gifts; the magnificent creation of a sculptor, who was called to paint. Initially reluctant, Michelangelo faithfully responded to the call and exceeded virtually all expectations.

Reverend Kyles commented how this could be seen in how determined Dr. King was to return to lead a second march in Memphis to demonstrate the importance of non-violence, even though his presence in Memphis meant cancelling an event in Washington, D.C. Reverend Kyles invited Dr. King to speak to the Memphis sanitation workers and to lead a march in support of their rights. According to Reverend Kyles, Dr. King had actually come back to Memphis after his first march there because violence had marred the peaceful protest. 

Dr. King was assassinated during this second trip to Memphis, however, his captivating phrases of going to the mountain top and seeing the Promised Land will not soon be forgotten. 

When I reflect on the 'street sweeper' quote, I think about how the quote is much less well known, but in some ways as profound as any of Dr. King's other quotes. I realize that Dr. King's philosophy and message to the sanitation workers and all people was that doing a job and doing it to the best of one's ability is the hallmark of unity and patriotism. 

Dr. King's quote reminds me that all of us are important pieces of a larger puzzle; connected, relevant and interdependent. I also think about the Air Force core values and the untold numbers of anonymous men and women who contribute to Air Force missions worldwide. Every day, members of the Air Force family make sacrifices to display excellence, uphold integrity and serve others before themselves. When I pause on Dr. King's birthday, I will remember the thousands of faces of men and women that I have actually seen who serve selflessly and do their jobs well.