Atlanta Mayor Encourages Daily Service to Meet the Challenges of Our Times

It isn’t always easy to find the time and place to serve others, but the legacy of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dictates that we must take steps to make our world a better place. That was the message from Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin as she addressed an audience gathered to celebrate the 14th Annual Community Service Awards Program, held last month at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. The Community Service Awards are co-sponsored by Goizueta and Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Franklin spoke about the movement, encouraged by King’s widow, the late Coretta Scott King, to classify the annual King Day as a day of service. Across the nation, volunteers come together each January to honor Dr. King’s birthday by partnering with nonprofits, schools, and other community-oriented organizations. They help meet the critical needs of the community’s children, seniors, disabled persons, homeless, undereducated, and animals. They paint, clean, coordinate, and do whatever it takes to tackle the challenge of the day.

But it is not enough. One day is not enough, and Franklin’s agenda calls for a lifetime of service. The nine individuals and organizations being honored meet these criteria. “Today’s program honoring community service is a particularly good way to celebrate Dr. King’s life,” she said. “It honors service beyond Dr. King’s birthday. For not only are we active on his birthday, we are acting on a daily basis.”

(Nine individuals and organizations that exemplify tireless service to the Atlanta community were honored at the King event: Bruce Coward; Dress for Success Atlanta; Akudo Ejelonu; Dabney Evans [and Emory University Institute of Human Rights]; Evelyn Mims; Operation P.E.A.C.E. [Positive Education Always Creates Elevation], Inc.; Project Success [100 Black Men of Atlanta]; Sisters Intelligently Striving to Enhance Real Sisterhood [S.I.S.T.E.R.S.], and Mr. Patrick Sutton.)

The Mayor acknowledged that “One of the hardest things for us to commit to these days is service to others. We feel it in our hearts; we even can see it; but trying to work out the transportation is difficult. Trying to find the funding is difficult. Trying to find our niche gets difficult. Trying to connect with other partners gets difficult.”

Well intentioned volunteers face frustrating obstacles at multiple levels, she acknowledged. Those who need our help often refuse our service. Franklin urged the audience to be willing to give them more than one chance and even multiple chances. “One of the other significant things about Dr. King’s legacy is he makes it clear that everyone, not just those who come to us for help, but everyone deserves our love. He goes on to say that you don’t have to like the person you love,” Franklin said, but “…unconditional love requires you to love your enemies, to love those who are hurting you or seeking to hurt you.”

Mayor Franklin mentors hundreds of high school students, by e-mail or in person. In fact, last year she personally met with more than 800 students as part of the Next Step...The Atlanta Promise Program, a program for every Atlanta Public School high school senior designed to engage students in planning for ther future beyond high school, whether it is college, the workforce, technical school or the military. “It is some of the most fulfilling work that I do because I have a chance to relate to them, face to face, and get a chance to hear, unfiltered, what they are thinking about. Those of us in the government world don’t get a chance to relate to young people on a regular basis, like you do in the academic world. Sometimes it seems completely foreign to me when young people come up to me with some crazy ideas.”

“But I have learned. When you get old enough you realize that a few crazy ideas changed the world,” she said, reflecting on Dr. King’s dream. Franklin was a freshman at Howard University when Dr. King made his famous speech in August 1963. She attended with her family.

“I was one of those who thought Dr. King was too nice. You see, in the summer of 1963, I wanted to see [now Georgia Congressman] John Lewis, the radical. I didn’t really understand the relationships, that John Lewis was a disciple of King. He just had another way of expressing it. But the enduring legacy of Dr. King is as true today as it was then. If we are to be successful as a people, our lives are enhanced when we seek to help the other person be successful.”

Peace is a major challenge of our time, noted Franklin. “While we may have differences in opinion as to how to get there, the aspiration has to be peace. Our city, Atlanta, has nearly a quarter of its population living below the poverty line, and a lot more living close to the poverty line. People are living under bridges and in shelters as we speak. Some way or another, we are obligated to do something about that.”

“Another statistic,” she continued. “More than 50%, and some will say (depending on the locale) up to 70% of African American and Latino males are dropping out of high school. We can blame the young people if we want to. I’m going to quote somebody you don’t expect, which is [rapper] T. I.: ‘You can hate me if you want to, but you’re wasting your time.’ That’s exactly the case when we start talking about high school dropouts. We are wasting our time to blame them. We have got to find ways to guarantee them their lives.”

The list of society’s ills is long. “Millions, some say 47 million, some say 50 million, are without healthcare in the United States. That is not going to work for long,” Franklin added. “The most expensive way to deliver healthcare services is through the emergency room. We force millions of Americans to use the emergency room. It is the least effective way to get healthcare, in terms of prevention and curing. And no matter how good the doctor is, they don’t know your health history. It is not only expensive, it is not particularly effective. Lives are saved, but not the lives that could have been saved if we had more preventive healthcare.”

There is much to be done. Without a strong personal commitment to service, it will be impossible for us to tackle the major challenges of the day, including war, poverty, education, and equality, Franklin said.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with color. This doesn’t have anything to do with gender, or native land; this has to do with what is right. Our challenge is not just to honor those who serve; our challenge is to serve ourselves.”

Each year The Rollins School of Public Health along with Goizueta Business School honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by selecting award recipients (organizations and individuals) in three categories: Programs for Children, Innovation for Change, and Service and Advocacy. The 2007 theme for the awards is “Continuing the Dream in the Next Generation.” For more information on the awards, visit www.sph.emory.edu/AWARDS/. –Sarah Banick

For more articles on faculty expertise and thought leadership at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, visit Knowedge@Emory at http://knowledge.emory.edu.