On this national holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., some people might be wondering what can be said about him that has not already been said.

That’s a fair, logical question, considering how King’s life, speeches, leadership and the goals and causes he promoted have been dissected time and time again, especially since his assassination on April 4, 1968, on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tenn.

However, since Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2023, a book published on May 16 of last year has provided another round of comprehensive insight into the life of the civil rights leader who looked America’s status quo straight in the eye and became an engine for positive change.

As part of today’s observance, this editorial will focus on some main points of that book — “King: A Life” — which was written by American journalist and biographer Jonathan Eig.

Hopefully, most Americans will reflect today on some of the things King was able to accomplish during his short life of 39 years and, perhaps, ponder what else he might have been able to achieve if he had lived long enough to become a senior citizen.

No doubt he would have been a formidable asset if he had had the opportunity to address some of the difficult issues with which America is dealing at this time.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day builds upon King’s vision of Jesus as “an extremist for love.” King challenged America’s conscience, as well as troubling aspects of its status quo.

Here are some of the important points regarding King made by author Eig in his book and which were part of an essay based on the book that was published in the Wall Street Journal’s May 13-14, 2023, edition:

– America remembers King’s dream of unity and justice without deeper consideration of the radical Christianity upon which that dream was built. King’s Christianity still presents a challenge to liberals and conservatives alike.

– While it should come as no surprise that a Baptist preacher with a bachelor’s degree in divinity and doctorate in systematic theology should bring religious values to his work as an activist, the surprise is the way those values pushed King to take confrontational and unpopular stances as he gained national influence.

– King declared that the civil rights movement’s larger goal was to save the soul of the nation. He invoked a fundamental Bible lesson – that all of mankind was created in God’s image, that humans might sort themselves by race or nation but God did not.

– King frequently invoked the Old Testament. He quoted the prophet Amos in declaring that it wasn’t enough to pray for change, that people needed to take matters into their own hands, to march, vote and raise their voices “until justice rolls down like waters.”

– He said he was tired of people who had full rights and privileges telling others to wait patiently for theirs. An unjust law is no law at all, he said, citing St. Augustine, and an unjust law demanded an extreme response.

– King proclaimed that the arc of justice would not bend toward justice “without a radical reconstruction of society itself.”

Much has happened since King’s voice was silenced in 1968 but, amid the context of those happenings, his messages have not been rendered obsolete.

That’s important to remember.