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We start the week with a national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Though it is an occasion for celebration of his life and work toward nonviolent social change in America – especially in the area of racial equality – I ask that as business and community leaders we also see this day as a time for reflection and continued action.

I wonder what Dr. King would advise today in the areas of diversity and economic justice? I believe his guidance is shown in one of his famous quotations: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Fifty years ago, racial lines between black and white Americans were still firmly drawn, and diversity was yet to become an everyday word in our society. Improving race relations was Dr. King’s passion, and his vision helped lead to the civil rights movement. I believe that today Dr. King would challenge us to embrace all the ways we are different – not just racially, but also in such areas as gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, economic status and education.

As Dr. King often said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He believed that justice was the birthright of every human being.

Dr. King dreamed of “a world in which men will no longer take necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.” Given our current economic situation, disparity in health-care coverage and the countless examples of Wall Street greed, it almost sounds prophetic.

Dr. King’s deep dedication to workers’ rights and economic justice came toward the end of his tragically short life. On April 4, 1968, he was fatally shot while standing on a balcony in Memphis, Tenn., where he was helping lead sanitation workers in a protest against low wages and poor working conditions. Plans were under way for the “Poor People’s Campaign” to draw attention to economic injustice. King was assassinated before the campaign was successfully launched and his proposed economic bill of rights was never passed.

As we work to improve our current economic injustices, let us be reminded of what Dr. King forewarned: “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.”

Setbacks are to be expected, but now, more than ever, I imagine Dr. King would advise us to get back to the basics of economic justice – creating jobs, paying fair wages and providing access to education and training for all people.

Please join Bankers Trust Co. and me in a commitment to do all we can within our own companies, communities and spheres of influence so we can continue the vision of Dr. King. As he reminded us, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

Suku Radia is the president of Bankers Trust Co.