“We’ve got to get rid of the myth of time.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

This year is the 60th anniversary of a little-known speech that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered at Arizona State University just weeks before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.

“Somewhere, we must come to see that time is neutral,” King said in “Religious Witness for Human Dignity” on June 3, 1964, at old Goodwin Stadium in Tempe. “It can be used either constructively or destructively.

“And I am convinced … that the forces of ill will in our nation have used time much more effectively than the forces of good will.”

His words are as true now as they were then, a sad reality for all to consider at MLK Day events around Phoenix in the coming days.

If leaders and attendees are truly concerned about King’s legacy, instead of just being worried about eating fancy meals and patting each other on the back, they’ll be locked in on making sure democratic ideals prevail since another piece of King’s legacy, the Voting Rights Act, has been dismantled.

“The essence of King’s teachings and what he wanted for us are being systematically lost,” Matthew Whitaker, executive director of the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Phoenix, said in a phone interview. He was working as a history professor at ASU when the........

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