Attorney General Loretta Lynch reflected on Martin Luther King, Jr., on Thursday by saying his work isn’t done, and vowing that the Justice Department continues to take steps to ensure equal treatment for all.
“[W]e reflect on the legacy he left behind, and as we rededicate ourselves to the task of continuing his unfinished work,” Lynch, the country’s first African-American woman attorney general, said in a speech from Washington, D.C.
“I commit to you today, that this Department of Justice will always choose to act,” she said. “We will always choose to protect the weak from the strong, to lift up the essential humanity and equal rights of every American, regardless of what they look like, where they live or whom they love.”
Lynch noted that King and those who stood by him are “not relics of history, but living challenges.”
These calls to action “still echo in our hearts, urging us to continue their journey, to extend their cause and to realize their vision of a more just society — and a more beloved community,” Lynch remarked, adding King’s challenge “to a nation to live up to its defining principles” still holds true today.
“This is all vital work and the scope and the pace of our efforts on behalf of justice and civil rights demonstrate how far we’ve come in the last half-century. But it is clear, even now, that we still have a long way to go to reach the promised land that Dr. King described — and that every one of us must be committed to do our part,” she said.
“That is why it is incumbent on all of us here today, our partners around the country and every citizen of the United States, to devote ourselves to the perfection of our union; to recommit ourselves to the continuation of Dr. King’s cause; and to rededicate ourselves to the journey still to come,” she said.
Monday marks the American federal holiday marking the birthday of King, which is observed on the third Monday of January each year. President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday honoring the civil rights activist in 1983 and it was first observed three years later.
King was 39 years old when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968.
Read Lynch’s full commemorative speech on King here.
