Yesterday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have turned 77. Today, as we honor his legacy, I feel compelled to dip into his words, let them sink in deep. Here are some excerpts from his speech "The Drum Major's Instinct" (which I found on the King Center website):

"Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's "Theory of Relativity" to serve. You don't have to know the Second Theory of Thermal Dynamics in Physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love, and you can be that servant."

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. Say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things in life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say. If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he is traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain."

Salon has compiled a collection of stirring and heartbreaking audio recordings from and about Dr. King, and CODEPINK has created a Flash movie to pay tribute to his legacy as a peacemaker. He is still our drum major, and we'll keep drumming, keep marching, keep finding ways to embody his teachings...