Today we honor Martin Luther King Jr and his contribution to our nation through the non-violent and ultimately successful struggle to restore civil rights to all citizens of the United States — a struggle that took his own life in a 1968 assassination. His niece, Dr. Alveda King, fondly remembers her uncle and her own father in this segment on Fox & Friends on this holiday. Dr. Alveda King is a tireless activist for the pro-life cause, and she asserts in this interview that had her uncle lived to see today, he’d be considered a pro-life, social conservative:

It’s always a little dangerous to take historical figures and plug them into current political paradigms. If anyone can do that well, though, it would be the family of those historical figures, especially those with direct personal experience with them. It’s also very possible that other members of MLK’s family will object to this characterization, but it’s hardly a new claim for Alveda, who has insisted for a long time that her uncle would have found abortion on demand abhorrent, both as a preacher and an advocate for the African-American communities of the nation.

That is one of the ways in which the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr challenges us. How do we see “the Dream” today, and how can we best ensure that people will be valued not for the color of their skin but for the content of their character? How do we value them at all if we throw away millions of Americans before they even have a chance to enter our world simply for being inconvenient?