A Day for Service

Today in Durham and across the nation, we will pay respect to a great American hero who gave his life to advance social justice, equality, and opportunity for all. We’ve seen great progress in the more than four decades since Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. And yet our society is still confronting many of the same challenges King faced — the mountain of poverty in our cities, the epidemic of high school dropouts, the cycle of gangs and violence facing too many of our young people. King understood that government alone couldn’t solve these problems; that it would take citizens acting together. He challenged all Americans to join in building a more perfect union and said “everybody can be great because everybody can serve.”