Reflection and Discussion Ideas for MLK Day

Throughout the MLK Day of Service, the Project Coordinator should try to ensure volunteers are supported and feel their effort is meaningful. Once the service portion of the day has ended, you are encouraged to take a few minutes to reflect on your service with your volunteers. With all the challenges facing our region and the world, MLK Day of Service is a great opportunity to honor Dr. King’s legacy of compassion and justice.

Soon, thousands of individuals will be volunteering in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy. Here at United Way, we want to support you, those who wish to give their time and resources during MLK Day of Service. Here we will offer reflection questions, reminders, and recommendations to ensure you're prepared to serve the community. We want to support you so that partnership and co-dreaming pervade instead of pity, paternalism, and privilege, and want you to continue Dr. King's legacy of transformation instead of transaction as you connect with nonprofits and communities. 

During reflection, you should encourage the group to:

  • Reflection questions to pose to volunteers:
    • You are committing to serve. In what ways can volunteers be helpful? In what ways can it be harmful and strip communities of their wholeness and humanity? 
    • You are committing to serve. Why does this issue even exist? What is making you have to volunteer with this organization in the first place? 
    • People don't need fixing; systems do. How does this particular issue disproportionately affect Black and brown communities that have been historically excluded and affected the most by harmful systems? 
    • A number of organizations opening their doors to volunteers during MLK Day of Service have ongoing volunteer opportunities throughout the year. Ask yourself what happens next. Once you're back home, as you live day by day, how will you continue the learning and volunteering you've begun that day? What Black and brown led organizations can you partner with and make a dedicated bond to their justice work? 
  • Encourage participants to make a pledge to continue volunteering during the year. Make and distribute “pledge cards.” Ask participants to share their personal pledge for ongoing civic engagement with the group. If there is time, create a “group pledge” for future projects.
  • Discuss the community concern/need that your project addressed.
  • Discuss how the group used Dr. King’s principles (e.g., unity, respect, service, peace, justice, etc.) to successfully complete the project.

Make it a DAY ON, not a DAY OFF!

We commemorate Dr. King’s inspiring words, because his voice and his vision filled a great void in our nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that truly lived by its noblest principles. Yet, Dr. King knew that it wasn’t enough just to talk the talk, that he had to walk the walk for his words to be credible. And so we commemorate on this holiday the man of action, who put his life on the line for freedom and justice every day, the man who braved threats and jail and beatings and who ultimately paid the highest price to make democracy a reality for all Americans.

Don't leave the organization you volunteer with without actually becoming a long-term co-dreamer in their work. Be accountable and do it. Ask the following question… "How can I keep this going?"

"We are called on this holiday, not merely to honor, but to celebrate the values of equality, tolerance and interracial sister and brotherhood he so compellingly expressed in his great dream for America.” -Mrs. Coretta Scott King

Some History behind Martin Luther King Day

15 years after Dr. King's death President Ronald Reagan signed a bill into law making the third Monday of January a national holiday celebrating the birth and life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It took many years for Congress to decide to celebrate the holiday. In the years leading up to the official decree many African-Americans celebrated the birthday themselves with a few states declaring King's birthday a state holiday. The bill was finally passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and was signed into law on November 2, 1983. The first national celebration of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday took place January 20, 1986.

In 1994 Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, designating the King Holiday as a national day of volunteer service. Instead of a day off from work or school, Congress asked Americans of all backgrounds and ages to celebrate Dr. King's legacy by turning community concerns into citizen action. The King Day of Service brings together people who might not ordinarily meet, breaks down barriers that have divided us in the past, leads to better understanding and ongoing relationships, and is an opportunity to recruit new volunteers for your ongoing work.

For more MLK Day resources, visit http://www.mlkday.gov/