Fox’s Harris Faulkner Urges Honoring ‘Diversity of Thought’ on MLK Day: ‘All Things are Possible When We Work Together’

Fox News hosts Harris Faulkner and Charles Payne celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday by sharing their personal reflections on the holiday.

Faulkner joined Payne of Fox Business Network’s Making Money, where the host opened by thanking Stevie Wonder for his efforts in helping to memorialize Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday more than a decade after the civil rights icon was assassinated by a white man in Tennessee in 1968.

“Happy birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. That song of course from the great Stevie Wonder whose herculean efforts played a role in making Martin Luther King Day a reality,” Payne said. “Stevie released the song in summer of 1981. He gathered petitions with over six million signatures.”

Payne continued:

Two years later in the summer of 83, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation into law to make it a federal holiday. It would take many years before states would follow, with Arizona being the last holdout. This long, hard road began four days after his death in 1968. Americans officially recognized Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1986. Before I was an empty nester I made sure to have as many kids in the family, nephews, god kids, all of them at the house over the weekend so we can listen, discuss, we would actually take turns reading Martin Luther King’s speeches. The fact all of these events happened in my lifetime I think it is bittersweet. Now it has been a painful road. It also has been a road paved because of the ethos of America, a notion of a more perfect union.

“The notion fairness would prevail even when aspects of society were inhumane,” Payne concluded. “There has always been a determination to do the right thing. That is what propelled Americans to the front of the world. Now for me, this is a day to look back and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifices and to look forward to fulfill the dream and the promise.”

Faulkner said that a day celebrating King, who was known for embracing non-violence to fight for racial equality, is a reminder that “all things are possible.”

“When we look back, MLK Day means this to me, all things are possible when we work together,” Faulkner said. “That measuring change is a part of how to go forward,” Faulkner added:

Not forgetting as you mentioned the journey might have been tough, it was chippy, it was all the trouble and all the pain and heartache history books tell us. As you said with your family, what a beautiful tradition, to read those speeches before you and your wife were empty nesters. What progress have we made? … In 1940, 60% of employed black women served as domestic servants. Today the number is 2.2%, while 60% hold white-collar jobs. In 1958, all of these before you and I were born, 44% of whites said they would move if a black family moved next door to them. Today the figure is 1%.

“In 1964, the year before I was born, the year the great Civil Rights Act was passed, only 18% of whites claimed to have a friend that was black,” Faulkner also said. “Today 86% say they do. 87% of blacks assert they have white friends. That tells me that anything is possible.”

Faulkner argued the holiday elicits memories of her father, who served in the military and reminded her as a child of the progress that was then being made for Black Americans:

He talked to people why he loved this country so much because of its potential. Those signs were still up across the South. I was born in the South. Where we could drink, where we could go to the bathroom, I was just a toddler. My parents would remind me, in your lifetime, in my lifetime look how much change has come about. You and I are handed the mantle now for more change. And I don’t just mean as people of color, as people in the media. For the platforms that we have.”

“It is inherent upon us and incumbent upon us to remind people diversity is more than the color of your skin and texture of our hair,” Faulkner said. “It is our diversity of thought, perspective, origin of culture, where our people came from in this country.”

Watch above via Fox News