Karla Stoltzfus Detweiler looks at the role of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an early leader in the environmental justice movement and provides suggested actions to honor his legacy.
Karla Stoltzfus Detweiler serves as the climate justice coordinator for Mennonite Church USA. An ordained minister and former pastor in Central Plains Mennonite Conference, she graduated from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Eastern Mennonite University. When she’s not connecting with others about creation care and climate justice, you can find her in her garden, tending her family’s flock of chickens, cooking up something featuring local and seasonal ingredients, or reading with her son and daughter. A native of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, she now calls Kalona, Iowa, home.
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“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly..”
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Christmas sermon of 1967
Martin Luther King, Jr. photographed by Marion S. Trikosko, 1964. LC-DIG-ppmsc-01269 Source: Library of Congress
We celebrate the peacemaking legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, January 15, 2024. King understood the interconnectedness of all life and planted the seeds for the environmental justice movement. In his final trip to Memphis in 1968, King confronted environmental racism in the United States as he helped lead a strike by Black sanitation workers who were protesting hazardous working conditions. The strike represented one of the first organized actions of the environmental justice movement. (source: causes.com)
Engage your congregation, neighbors or family in an act of service that cares for our planet on MLK Day:
- Prayerfully bike or walk instead of driving.
- Join efforts to make homes in your community more energy efficient.
- Plant a tree. Learn more about how trees heal our climate from Mennonite Men’s JoinTrees initiative.
- Partner with others to plan a community garden.
- Cook a plant-based meal featuring locally grown ingredients, and share it with neighbors!
- Advocate for climate justice. Check out Mennonite Central Committee‘s Climate Advocacy campaigns. Or learn more from Interfaith Power and Light’s January 25 webinar: What’s on Deck for Climate Policy in 2024 Briefing.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog belong to the author and are not intended to represent the views of the MC USA Executive Board or staff.
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