Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. statue memorial in West Potomac Park, Washington D.C. (Atomazul)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that a healthy, equitable society brimming with hope and opportunity for everyone required two key components.
The first is scientific and technological progress. Speaking in 1964 in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance lecture, Dr. King marveled at innovation in computing, infrastructure, and air and space travel. He called the pace of technological advancement “an awe-inspiring threshold of the future…a dazzling picture of modern man's scientific and technological progress.”
Dr. King, however, also understood that not all problems can be solved in a lab.
"The solution of [racial injustice, poverty, and war] is…dependent upon man squaring his moral progress with his scientific progress, and learning the practical art of living in harmony," observed Dr. King.
The second key component—our ability to respect and empathize with others—lies within each of us, in what Dr. King referred to as “the internal realm.” He argued that our internal emotional and spiritual needs must be nourished and balanced with the enrichments and pursuits of the “external realm,” even when the pursuit is as noble and important as curing disease.
When we allow “the internal to become lost in the external,” he wrote, “we [allow] the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.”
Athari was founded on the idea that organizations driving scientific innovation through products and services (the “means by which we live”) should also support their communities (the “ends for which we live”) with education, career opportunities, mentoring, and other kinds of personal investment.
It is important for us all to remember that, though we are each one small part of a much larger community, we all have a responsibility to take an active role in nurturing each other and ourselves.
Dr. King’s lessons are especially poignant to us as a Black-founded company. One way we honor Dr. King’s legacy, and do our part to strive for equity, is by investing in Black communities and other communities of color that have been historically underrepresented and underserved. We provide educational, career, and mentoring opportunities through both our own initiatives and through partnerships with for-profit, non-profit, and government organizations.
In 2023, we will keep that progress going, with several planned mentoring and support initiatives to be announced in the coming months.
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