{"id":36372,"date":"2023-01-15T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/on-mlk-day-heroes-do-not-act-alone\/"},"modified":"2023-01-15T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T11:30:00","slug":"on-mlk-day-heroes-do-not-act-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/on-mlk-day-heroes-do-not-act-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"On MLK Day: Heroes do not act alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Svante
Svante Myrick<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every year, the arrival of the Martin Luther King holiday calls us to pause and reflect on King\u2019s legacy. And every year, I\u2019m struck by the same thing: As sincere as we are in our reverence for King, we keep learning the wrong lessons not just from his life but from history writ large.<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

In my life, in our lives as Americans, there are people and stories that inspire us. The stories go something like this: \u201cAbraham Lincoln freed enslaved people,\u201d or \u201cKing gave a wonderful speech and we had civil rights in our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

They are nice stories. But Lincoln didn\u2019t end slavery alone. And King, throughout his incredible life and career, was supported by the work of thousands of unknown and largely unsung people who made his accomplishments possible.<\/p>\n

These people were the women who set up the chairs in the church halls for meetings, the men who drove supporters to events and voters to the polls, and the grandmothers who called friends and neighbors to gather crowds to hear King\u2019s message. They were the people who risked their lives in marches, faced arrest and abuse by police, and battled segregation in their everyday lives.<\/p>\n

By the time King stood up to speak \u2013 and certainly by the time he gave his most famous speech on the National Mall \u2013 he stood on the shoulders of thousands of people who worked, organized and sacrificed.<\/p>\n

That makes all the difference. Too often, the morals of the stories that elevate one person are this: \u201cWe need another hero\u201d or \u201cIf only we had another King alive today.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that is the wrong lesson.<\/p>\n

Why? Because then we sit on our hands waiting for that person to come along and work miracles. We elect a president and we say, \u201cWe can\u2019t wait to see how he saves us.\u201d In reality, we are all needed to save us. No leader can accomplish great things alone.<\/p>\n

There is a debate over this principle in the academic world today, in the pushback against the so-called \u201cGreat Man Theory\u201d of history. The Great Man Theory is exactly what it sounds like: attributing all the advances of history to the genius of individuals like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill.<\/p>\n

It is how most of us were taught history. But we need to remember that our more recent heroes did not act alone, either.<\/p>\n

Every successful person who commits to making life better for people \u2013 and for that matter, every destructive person who harms people and communities \u2013 does so with the contributions of numerous others. We can see this in our own lives.<\/p>\n

In my case, I spent my early childhood in a homeless shelter. Because of the work and dedication of my family, the elected officials who created the Pell Grants that allowed me to go to college, and the donors who believed in me, I was able to grow up, graduate from Cornell University and be elected to successive terms as mayor of Ithaca, New York.<\/p>\n

We are all part of a network of relationships that influences us. We are all connected, indispensable to one another and to each of our individual stories.<\/p>\n

King was a giant who touched the lives of millions. As we honor him, let\u2019s also honor those who traveled with him on his journey. And remember the next chapter in history will be written by \u2013 and with \u2013 all of us.<\/p>\n

Svante Myrick is the president of People for the American Way and a former mayor of Ithaca, New York. His guest column was distributed by OtherWords.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myrickcca Every year, the arrival of the Martin Luther King holiday calls us to pause and reflect on King\u2019s legacy. And every year, I\u2019m struck by the same thing: As sincere as we are in our reverence for King, we keep learning the wrong lessons not just from his life but from history writ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36372"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}