Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day from all of us at the Green Garage! We held our 14th annual MLK Reflection during community lunch last Friday, January 19 and are starting the week feeling hopeful and inspired.
Each year, the Green Garage community gets together to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in order to strengthen our moral grounding and prepare us for what the new year has to bring. (Green Garage co-founder Tom Brennan always says that his new year doesn’t really start until MLK Day, or as he calls it, “the New Year for one’s soul.”)
We typically select a quote from Dr. King to start our thinking and center our conversation and activities around. This year we started with one of his most famous quotes:
“An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
We used that profound statement to inspire reflection on how each of us is called to respond to injustice according to our own unique gifts and experiences, and how, in the fight against injustice, we are all stronger together than we are alone. Our reflection included a short talk by Tom, a group poetry reading from members of our community, a song we listened to together, and a community art activity that gave everyone who joined us the opportunity to share about their resistance to injustice.
Dr. King’s Blueprint for Resistance
Tom began with an acknowledgement that it can be overwhelming to know how to respond to injustice when injustice has come to be so rampant in our society. But he says that Dr. King left us with a “blueprint for resistance,” comprising five aspects: love, service, excellence, community, and movement.
Here’s a little more about each:
Love
This is the basis of all Dr. King’s teachings. Simply put, he believed we need to act from love to bring about a more just world. This was directly tied to his deep, unwavering faith. As only Dr. King can explain:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
So, in order for us to help drive out the darkness, we need to act from a place of love.
Service
For Dr. King, service to others is our highest calling. As he said:
“Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.”
Excellence
The important thing is to be your best at what you do, not someone else’s best. Dr. King teaches:
“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. If a person is called to be a street sweeper, they should sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. They should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did their job well.’”
Community
Dr. King implores us not to act alone, but together. As he put it, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” He goes on to say our togetherness is our destiny:
“All life is interrelated. All people are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
For Dr. King, every boycott, every march, every sit-in was done with others. He formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with friends. This is where he drew his strength. So, in memory of him, remember to lean on each other.
Movement
Dr. King was the leader of the Civil Rights Movement to bring about racial justice and social justice more broadly. We tend to skip over the word “movement,” but he didn’t. He famously stated: “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
Poem: “Of History and Hope”
Our annual reflection typically includes a poetry reading, because we find that poetry has a unique power to speak to our diverse community and inspire rich conversation on our theme. This year we invited four members of the Green Garage community—Henry Cesari, Rhonda Greene, and Pam and Keith Owens—to join the Green Garage’s Matt Piper in a group reading of Miller Williams’ 1997 poem “Of History and Hope.”
Williams (1930-2015) was a poet, biologist, and lifelong resident of Arkansas. His poem doesn’t address MLK or the topic of injustice directly, instead speaking in strong, simple language about our nation’s past and the crucial work of creating a better future together. You can read it here at Poetryfoundation.org.
Song: “BLACKBIIRD” by Beyoncé (lyrics by Paul McCartney)
We also like to explore our theme by listening to music together. This year we listened to “BLACKBIIRD,” Beyoncé’s 2025 cover of “Blackbird” (1968) by the Beatles. A deceptively simple tune, “Blackbird” might not be the first song you think of when you think about songs having to do with the struggle for justice. But when Beyoncé covered it last year, she was intentionally referencing its Civil Rights-era inspiration.
As this article in Time explores, Paul McCartney has made it clear over the years that he was inspired to write “Blackbird” after learning of Civil Rights struggles in the US, specifically the story of the “Little Rock Nine,” a group of Black high school students who were met with fierce hostility when they integrated Little Rock High School in Arkansas in 1957. “In England,” he said, “a bird is a girl, so I was thinking of a Black girl going through this—you know, now’s your time to arise, set yourself free….” Beyoncé’s beautiful, simple cover makes the connection clear. Listen to it from the video linked below:
Justice Tree for MLK
The heart of this year’s reflection was the Justice Tree. This was a collaborative community art project that gave everyone who joined us the opportunity to answer two questions: “Where does your resistance to injustice come from?” and “Given your special talents and spirit, what form does your resistance take?” Each person wrote their answers to one or both questions on a paper leaf, then stood and shared their answers with the group. While they spoke, we added their leaves to our Justice Tree, made of yarn and installed on the wood wall that served as the background for our event.
We were so grateful and honored that everyone who attended participated in this exercise. It was a diverse group, including past and present members of our coworking space, virtual office clients, longtime friends of the Green Garage, and first-time visitors. Their answers were wonderfully diverse too, but they all came from the heart. Some common themes emerged, including a sense of responsibility to the ancestors who fought for justice before us, as well as a commitment to celebrating diversity and honoring the dignity and worth of every person, no matter their individual circumstance.
The conversation left us feeling inspired, optimistic, and full of gratitude for the abundance of good will, creativity, and resistance to injustice that help to define our community. Together, as Miller Williams put it in his poem, we are “believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.”
We consider our Justice Tree a work in progress and will leave it up through February. If you’re visiting the Green Garage before then, please take a moment to add a leaf of your own in honor of MLK and the ongoing struggle for justice across our nation.