Guest Editorial by Enoch Bright Ampong

Unfinished Business: Dr. King’s Legacy Lives On

On Monday, January 19—Martin Luther King Jr. Day—the First Baptist Church of Cooperstown held a gathering in remembrance of the life and legacy of the revered civil rights leader. Among the speakers honoring Dr. King was Enoch Bright Ampong, a museum studies student in the Cooperstown Graduate Program. Ampong, a Ghanaian museum guide and historian, arrived in Otsego County almost one year to the day. We thank Judy Steiner for knocking on our door on Monday evening deadline to share this with us, and we thank Enoch for allowing us to share his thoughts with our readers.

“What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.”—Aristotle

Meaning: A legacy is not inherited through words but completed through action and practice.

Today, we pause not only to honor a historic figure but to engage with a legacy that speaks directly to our mission as humanity. A godly mission given to us by our father, son and brother, Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King did not only believe that injustice anywhere was a threat to justice everywhere. As a man of God, he understood the ways of God and believed that our racial differences glorified the Lord’s work and made us complete. Love, not a weapon of disunity, was his remedy to social injustice.

Dr. King stated, “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” It should tell everyone, both the old and the young, that sometimes fighting back is not the way to victory, but fighting right is the path to harmony. I would like to quote the Bible. Genesis 37:5 reads that one time Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about the dream, he was despised.

He said, “Listen to the dream I had.

“We were all in the field binding sheaves of wheat when my sheaf suddenly stood upright and rose high. Yours formed a circle around mine and bowed down to it.”

Joseph’s brothers felt that Joseph wanted to be greater than them and their jealousy resulted in hatred. They could not find unity.

What I want to convey is that Dr. King envisioned every American, regardless of race, as equal. He recognized that even though we are plagued by injustices and social inequality, we do not belong in the field of wheat where inequality rules, but in a great country built equally by all Americans. He shared his dream not to elevate one race above another, but to encourage all Americans and humanity to see themselves as equally standing tall like Joseph’s sheaves. To Dr. King, we are a robe of many colors, but our differences should not send us into the pit of hatred; they should be our banner of unity.

Dr. King was a person who was against individualism. He was a man of all, from all, and for all. As a proponent of the common belief that “united we stand and divided we fall,” Dr. King taught us that we should not hesitate to show love to the homeless on the streets, regardless of their race. Dr. King was not just for Afro-America or all of America, but for the entire universe.

As a Ghanaian student in this magnificent nation, I stand here as a symbol of a 20th-century generation that fought for freedom from British colonialism. The Gold Coast, which became Ghana in 1957 after our independence, has its banner embedded in our coat of arms as freedom and justice. Today in Ghana and Africa at large, many millions of us know little about the enormous impact of Dr. King’s gospel of freedom and justice. This gospel not only changed the hearts of all Americans but also quickened some of the greatest sons of Africa and gave birth to great nations of Africa like Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the founding father of Ghana, who had arrived in America as a student with just $50.00 in his pocket, was awakened by his influence. Today, history recognizes Dr. Nkrumah as one of the founding fathers of Pan-Africanism.

As a man made and crafted by God, Dr. King had his worries and concerns to attend to. One such concern was his family. Let us not only contemplate what he did for the world. If Dr. King had dwelled among us today, I believe he would have done one thing. We all sometimes use the analogy of wanting people to sympathize with us or understand our experiences—to walk in our shoes. I do not know if Dr. King ever allowed anyone to experience life as he did.

Now I believe we are all reminiscing about the last time we asked a brother, sister or friend to put themselves in our shoes to understand what we are experiencing. I plead with you all to travel with me to my beautiful country, Ghana, in this very moment. There is a Ghanaian proverb I would want to share. It goes like this, “3KOTO DE WONYANKO NABODWE REHYEW A SAW NSO SI WODZE HO.” This saying means, “When you happen to come across a friend with a burning or flaming chin, do nothing but set a bucket of water beneath yours.”

I recall occasions when my mother would serve our meals in individual bowls and deliver the food to us by gliding it on the ground. I sometimes miss these moments. One of my sisters consistently expressed her dissatisfaction, questioning why she always received the head portion of the fish, and my mother would make the chin on flames proverb to tell her to focus on what she has or mind her own business.

But today, we have all gathered here to remind ourselves of the responsibility and a duty to hold high esteem. A task which was begun by a man who refused to set a bucket of water for his own chin but helped quench a brother’s burning chin through his gospel of freedom, justice and social equality as we celebrate his enduring legacy.

Let us not see this day as a day that swings by annually but as a day to continue the journey of justice in fighting against global injustice, no matter how high the mountain. Dr. King believed that sympathy and unity in the absence of hatred and violence would make America and the entire world a place where just a smile can heal the wounded, just an alms giving satisfies the hungry, and just a brotherly hug feels like home to the homeless.

“Man is condemned to be free.”—Jean-Paul Sartre

Meaning: We cannot escape responsibility for how we complete the legacy we inherit.

Therefore, this is an unfinished business and we today, irrespective of age and gender, have a crucifix to carry.

Long live Dr. King.