Milwaukee VA marks MLK Day with call to honor his words

But while King’s words were spoken more than a half century ago, speakers during the ceremony validated time and again how those words still apply in the 21st century and to the work the Milwaukee VA does to help Veterans.

“Dr. King’s words are timeless,” said Tandria Williams, associate director for patient care services at the Milwaukee VA and the keynote speaker. “They are just as critical today as they were in the 1960s.”

Williams noted King’s emphasis on community, saying the Milwaukee VA can do the same in service to our nation’s Veterans.

“As VA employees, our focus must be on resourcing our community of Veterans in enhancing their overall health and well-being,” she said.

She tied this to the I CARE values of VA — integrity, commitment, advocacy, respect, excellence — saying that putting those core values into daily practice is what defines an organization.

And while King spoke on a national — even global — stage, Williams said his message can resonate within the halls of the Milwaukee VA.

“We do not have the same platform as Dr. King, and we may not generate the same type of influence as Dr. King,” she said. “However, we all have an obligation to uphold our core values, because doing so strengthens our community. We all can be dynamic and do what is right and what matters.”

Quoting one of King’s many famous lines — “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” — Williams said she hears the VA’s core values in King’s words.

Committing to those values means “to stand in the gap for others and to create space for others to achieve wellness,” she said. “Our goal as VA employees is to act with high moral principles, adhere to the highest professional standards and maintain the trust and confidence of all with whom we engage.

“We must maintain an earnest belief in our vision. We must understand our environment and innovatively expand opportunities to serve Veterans. … We have an obligation to treat all those we serve and with whom we work with dignity and respect.”

Delon Powell, manager of the Milwaukee VA’s communications division, also recited King’s words, saying the call to action King delivered nearly 60 years ago still resonates today.

In a conversation with Harry Belafonte, King said the struggle for integration was ultimately an economic struggle. And that the struggle was akin to “integrating into a burning house.”

“Until we commit ourselves to ensuring that the underclass is given justice, and opportunity, we will continue to perpetuate the anger and violence that tears the soul of this very nation,” King said.

Powell said our response to that should be to become firemen and “not stand by and let this house burn.”

“We have come a long, long way. But we still have a long, long way to go before the problem of racial injustice is solved in our country,” Powell said. “The problem is still with us.”

He noted gains in voter registration have been countered by voter suppression, and that the economic and housing gains of minorities are still not equitable with their white counterparts.

“So what should we do? We should become firemen … (and) put out the flames that have burned and torn the very fabric that undergirds this great nation. And after we extinguish that fire, we must then pick up our sewing needles and begin repairing that fabric.

“We must weave back into this fabric those threads of hard work and dedication to the common good. We must repair the breaches of truth, the breaches of justice and the American way. We must renew the sense of morality and raise the level of pride associated with being a citizen of this great nation.”