What can I do?

I often feel overwhelmed at the problems of the world: continued economic and environmental exploitation of developing countries, poisoning our air and water with our cars and streets and parking, human trafficking, wars and rumors of wars. I have mentioned to friends that I wish we had a non-political leader like Dr. King who could inspire millions to demand the injustice stop, so this recent feature on civil rights leaders really hit me:

"One thing that I think the history books, and the media, have gotten very wrong is portraying the movement as Martin Luther King’s movement, when in fact it was a people’s movement," Diane Nash, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, said. "If people understood that it was ordinary people who did everything that needed to be done in the movement, instead of thinking, I wish we had a Martin Luther King now, they would ask, 'What can I do?'"

When he was 26 years old, Dr. King reluctantly agreed to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He became the public face of the movement, but he was speaking for millions who were already acting. As the late June Jordan said, "We are the ones we have been waiting for".