Last Thursday, my wife, Lisa, and I joined over 1000 people who attended a diversity breakfast organized by the city of Columbia, Missouri in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After some welcoming remarks, my guide dog, Heath, and I joined first-generation immigrants from India, Iran, and Japan to organize ourselves to go onstage to present an opening prayer composed by Otto Steinhaus, a retired minister. Rev. Steinhaus had based his text on fragments of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and scored it for four unaccompanied voices in various combinations. As the four of us were introduced, Heath and I walked smoothly up four rickety stairs to the stage with my right hand on the left elbow of one of the performers so she could assist us.

The three rehearsals leading up to this performance had been challenging, for while none of us had to sing, we needed to balance the four timbres and rates of our voices so that we would perform as an ensemble. Herr Steenhaus’s patient, confident leadership and his on-the-spot tinkering of phrases to make the piece flow better reminded me of my less patient, confident leadership and less-successful tinkering in graduate school as I worked with groups of musicians to perform my compositions.

As our audience warmly applauded our performance, Heath and I walked smoothly down the four rickety stairs from the stage with my right hand on the left elbow of one of the performers so she could assist me. As the mayor handed out diversity awards, I reflected that preparing for this performance had transformed the five of us from well-meaning strangers to a close-knit team that could, if given the chance, work together towards an even more challenging goal despite, or perhaps because of, our differences.

After the awards ceremony, a group of musicians performed a cantata consisting of spirituals and portions of Dr. King’s speeches. It was a riveting performance punctuated with several ovations and the rattle of Heath’s collar as he sprang to his feet with the rest of us.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s son next took over the room. He spoke about how his father had brought together people of all backgrounds to end legal segregation. He spoke about the progress towards ending racism that has taken place since his father’s death, and reminded us of how we have failed to address poverty and militarism, two issues that his dad was beginning to focus on before he was assassinated. And he spoke about how important forgiveness and reconciliation was to his father even when such efforts resulted in death threats. As Heath, my wife, and I hurried to our car so we could beat the traffic, I thought about how this breakfast, unlike most other diversity events I have attended, was both a celebration of progress and of the potential of a brighter future.

As we drove home, though, Lisa told me about several white men at a table near us who rarely applauded during the speech of Dr. King’s son. “They need to get a life and get with the program,” she snapped.

I was stunned. “They really didn’t applaud?”

“Not really. They’re probably a bunch of Republicans pissed off that Obama is still president.”

“I would think they would applaud at those points in the speech that weren’t controversial, but-“

Clearly, there is still work to do. Thanks to Dr. King’s example, though, we know that we can replace hostility with forgiveness. We know that we can try to change minds through quiet conversations instead of public grandstanding. And we can remember that the most effective way to encourage teamwork among people from different backgrounds is to give them a challenging task about which everyone can get excited, support them in their efforts, and highlight successes.

So let’s connect to keep King’s dream alive.