Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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In 1964, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize. After winning this prestigious award, his hometown of Atlanta planned an event to honor him. Its most influential residents were invited but almost none responded to the invitations. Conservatives simply refused to support an integrated dinner.
When Coca-Cola CEO J. Paul Austin was informed of the situation, he decided to act. He was largely motivated by his years in South Africa and viewing the fallout of apartheid. He threatened to take his company out of Atlanta if the city’s elite did not honor King for his Nobel Prize. In a tragic but fortunate manner, greed and optics were stronger than racism, and the tickets sold out immediately.
Coca-Cola taking a stand against the status quo was a necessary gamble that paid off. In today’s atmosphere, that would’ve been considered “cancel culture,” but not everything canceled is bad.
Sometimes it takes the government to change things — for instance, the Civil War — and other times it takes private companies and individuals such as Nike and Colin Kaepernick.
MLK Day should be a day of reflection and understanding that it wasn’t just equality for Black Americans King was fighting for, but was also for the very soul of America itself. He and other civil rights leaders of yesterday knew, and those of today know, that a country whose policies are dictated by racism, hate and fear of change is a country that’s destined to destroy itself.
