In the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and with Black History Month around the corner, King’s achievements are present in many minds. Although many of us remember him as a key figure in the civil rights movement, there was much more to King.
While what King did for the civil rights movement is noble and makes him deserving of his notoriety, if we only focus on his call for racial equality we almost miss the point entirely.
When King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 he was getting ready to lead a protest, but not a protest for civil rights. Instead, he was preparing to lead a protest for the garbage workers of Memphis, Tenn. King spoke about war, social justice, spiritual health, human dignity and countless other matters of justice until the day he was murdered.
What King professed was not simply non-violence or equality, but love. King said, “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.” Love is radical. Love calls for racial equality and justice. And love might even have been the reason King was assassinated.
In his lifetime King challenged the social structure of our nation in such a radical way that people were furious. And if King were alive today, it wouldn’t be surprising if people reacted in the same manner. After all, it was King who said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
It doesn’t take much effort to realize the truth in King’s statement, and if that doesn’t strike a chord in your soul it only proves that King was right. Too many years have passed in which we are living defensively — both as a country and as individuals.
But “spiritual doom” doesn’t have to be our fate. Instead, as King said, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
It is time that, like King, we demand justice in the name of love. It is time we find more creative ways to spread peace rather than war. It is time we turn away from our “destructive selfishness.” And it is time that we realize what we need most of all is some radical, life-changing, culture-molding, might-get-you-killed love.
– See more at: file:///Volumes/argonaut$/stories/sections/opinion/stories/2012/Jan/18/in_the_shadow.html#sthash.TQdBI9rC.dpuf
While what King did for the civil rights movement is noble and makes him deserving of his notoriety, if we only focus on his call for racial equality we almost miss the point entirely.
When King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 he was getting ready to lead a protest, but not a protest for civil rights. Instead, he was preparing to lead a protest for the garbage workers of Memphis, Tenn. King spoke about war, social justice, spiritual health, human dignity and countless other matters of justice until the day he was murdered.
What King professed was not simply non-violence or equality, but love. King said, “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.” Love is radical. Love calls for racial equality and justice. And love might even have been the reason King was assassinated.
In his lifetime King challenged the social structure of our nation in such a radical way that people were furious. And if King were alive today, it wouldn’t be surprising if people reacted in the same manner. After all, it was King who said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
It doesn’t take much effort to realize the truth in King’s statement, and if that doesn’t strike a chord in your soul it only proves that King was right. Too many years have passed in which we are living defensively — both as a country and as individuals.
But “spiritual doom” doesn’t have to be our fate. Instead, as King said, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
It is time that, like King, we demand justice in the name of love. It is time we find more creative ways to spread peace rather than war. It is time we turn away from our “destructive selfishness.” And it is time that we realize what we need most of all is some radical, life-changing, culture-molding, might-get-you-killed love.
– See more at: file:///Volumes/argonaut$/stories/sections/opinion/stories/2012/Jan/18/in_the_shadow.html#sthash.TQdBI9rC.dpuf