Reprinted from GreenBuzz Weekly, a free newsletter.在这里订阅。
On this MLK Day, a reflection.
早在1965年2月 - 他带领著名的几周前Selma-to-Montgomery march为了支持投票权，以及他被暗杀之前的三年多 - 我使马丁·路德·金（Martin Luther King Jr.
我的家人不是很虔诚。When my parents reluctantly agreed to let me have a bar mitzvah, we agreed that the topic of that week’s Torah portion — the traditional focus of a bar mitzvah speech — needed to be made "relevant" to our friends and family, none of whom were particularly religious either. I no longer recall the biblical story from that week that was the basis of my talk except that the central character had lived up to the courage of his convictions — at least, that was how my parents and I framed it.
这成为我演讲的主题：辜负了一个人的信念。从那里开始，对于金博士来说，这是一个相当短的旅程，后者体现了这种勇气。
我们所有人的可持续性都必须竞彩足球app怎么下载坚持我们的信念的勇气，即使这不舒服或不受欢迎。
Of course, 13-year-old me did not know that Dr. King would become the icon whose ideals and principles still reverberate across the globe. In 1965, he was better known — to me at least — as someone willing to go to jail, suffer beatings and humiliations and still stand firm on his beliefs. I marveled that in the "I have a dream" speech, delivered during the March on Washington about 18 months prior, he envisioned that "little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers." He was referring in that speech to children in Alabama, but he might as well have been talking about my community in Oakland, too.
半个多世纪后，现在我从事的工作中陷入了困境，有时我想知道：“ MLK对可持续业务有何评论？”
公正和公平
竞彩足球app怎么下载当然，可持续性不是当时的话题。至少在这种情况下，这个词直到1980年代后期才出现通用。因此，关于金博士对这个话题的想法或说的一切都是纯粹的猜测。
But he did allude to what we would later call "corporate responsibility" — the role of the private sector in creating a just and equitable society.
Dr. King is best known for advocating for racial justice and against social, political and economic discrimination against Black Americans. But his focus extended, particularly in his later work, beyond race to inequality in wealth and living standards for all. He singled out the lack of equality in employment and business, and preached that companies have a responsibility to be forces of good in the world and must lead by example. He inspired millions to stand up against businesses that condoned mistreating and abusing an entire segment of the population based on race or other factors. He called for radical change and the potential dismantling of unjust structures, institutions and economic systems.
[我们将讨论公司在下个月解决社会正义问题中的作用Greenbiz 22会议, Feb. 15-17 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Take advantage of the Advance Rate, which expires Jan. 21, by在这里注册。]
在他的1963年广受好评“伯明翰监狱的信”addressed to "My Dear Fellow Clergymen," Dr. King wrote what could easily be a manifesto for today’s social justice movement:
我意识到所有社区和国家的相互关系。我不能在亚特兰大袖手旁观，也不关心伯明翰发生的事情。任何地方的不公正都会威胁到任何地方的正义。我们陷入了一个不可避免的相互性网络中，并绑在一件命运的衣服上。直接影响一个人，间接影响一切。
作家德鲁·戴林格（Drew Dellinger），2017年opinion pieceon the subject for the New York Times, observed: "Over two years before the first national Earth Day, before ‘ecology’ and ‘the environment’ became catchwords of the ’70s, before popular knowledge of ‘Gaia theory’ and ‘systems thinking,’ Dr. King was tying his vision of justice and peace to the interrelated structure of the universe."
EJ’s harbinger
Among Dr. King’s last efforts was supporting a sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, Tennessee, in March 1968. It focused on the unequal working conditions of Black workers, who did more dangerous and dirty work for lower pay than their white peers, and who bore the burden of the associated health and safety risks. That campaign was a harbinger of the environmental justice movement that would follow, focusing on how people of color and the poor enjoy far fewer environmental protections and suffer far greater risks in their homes, communities and jobs.
Equally important, Dr. King recognized that many struggles of his time — and ours — including racial inequality, poverty, human rights and the health effects of air and water pollution, are inextricably linked. He likely would have embraced the goals of the Green New Deal, which aims to create economic opportunity and ensure access to nature, clean air and water, healthy food and climate protection for all. So, too, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to end poverty and hunger, empower the disadvantaged and reduce inequities, issues at the core of Dr. King’s life’s work.
He likely would have been a fierce advocate for addressing the climate crisis, particularly given that low-income families and people of color bear a disproportionate burden of climate impacts. But he would likely have chastised the modern environmental movement for prioritizing critters over communities — for seemingly placing polar bears ahead of poverty, for example.
Sadly, were he alive today (he would be 93), Dr. King would have seen how most of the struggles he embraced back then are still relevant today. Capitalism’s role in creating prosperity for the relative few remains a major civil right issue. Access to clean air and water remains tilted toward the "haves." The interconnectedness of social justice, environmental issues, economic equity and political discord is somewhat better understood now than then, but for most they remain disconnected dots.
而且，企业在解决这些问题中的作用，尽管今天比1960年代更加主动地积极主动，但由于商业的社会力量已经扩大，但仍完全不足。毫无疑问，金博士会对大多数公司的坚持不懈地承担慈善事业以外的社会正义问题感到非常失望（即使在2020年乔治·弗洛伊德（George Floyd）谋杀之后，在商业内似乎爆发了意识之后）。
但是我相信MLK会在了解我们“不可避免的互助网络”的商业领袖和企业家中找到慰藉和支持，并正在积极地致力于民主化获得食品，住房，薪水良好的工作和健康环境的机会。谁意识到没有这样做的人危害他们的客户，雇主和社区，最终是他们的公司。
对我来说，金博士的主要课程回到了我的米茨瓦（Mitzvah）演讲的话题：即使在不舒服或不受欢迎的情况下，我们所有人的可持续性都必须坚持我们的信念的勇气。竞彩足球app怎么下载现在像那时一样具有挑战性。
That’s not just a business lesson, of course, but a human one.
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