Martin Luther King Jr.
Alabama Police Mugshot,
February 22, 1956Yesterday was the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and tomorrow is the holiday to celebrate his life. I grew into adulthood with the words of Dr. King ringing in my ears. When he was assassinated in 1968 I joined with others, all over the county in the poor people campaign to Washington D.C. and at ‘Resurrection City’. Dr. King was at the height of his popularity, friend of the president, the year before he died when he gave his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. It was a speech that some said caused great harm to the civil rights movement but one he had to give to be true to his conscience.
Today speaking against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in general is okay but when we make our resistance specific, like trying to stop teaching war at a Catholic University, or holding our liberal congressperson accountable for her war spending ways, people do not want to hear it. Like King, people who point to the real causes of these wars and violence, are rejected.
Some who honor King these days are some of the same persons who disrespect his dreams and desires for human rights and dignity for all and an end to violence.
I have been talking about it and tomorrow, God willing, will do it: I will make a web page of quotes, like that for Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi and Thomas Merton for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is a tiny act but perhaps someone reading these words will be inspired to act on them. Here is a sample of some of the quotes that will appear on this page. These words of King rang true in years past, do today and will in the future.
“When we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school, be there. Be concerned about your brother (and sister). You may not be on strike, but either we go together or we go down together. Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.”
“Never again will I be silent on an issue that is destroying the soul of our nation…”
“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.”
“…disciplined nonviolence totally confused the rulers of the South … They did not know what to do. When they finally reached for clubs, dogs and guns, they found the world was watching, and then the power of nonviolent protest became manifest.”
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”
“Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.”
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”
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