First and foremost, Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!
In 1983, President Reagan signed Martin Luther King, Jr. day into law. Even so, it wasn’t until 2000 that all states observed the day as intended. 2000. That’s… incredible.
So called ‘controversial figures’ are always difficult to discuss. Regardless of what I write, someone, many even, will inevitably comment about King’s shortcomings, his failures, maybe even his alleged infidelities. Yet none of those things detract from what Dr. King accomplished on the civil rights front nor the legacy of hope he left behind.
God how I wish he were here today. I’ve often wondered if we would’ve been spared the pestilence of the Sharpton’s and Jackson’s of this world had Dr. King survived.
So abundant are King’s words of wisdom; the truths he left with us, that it’s always hard to pick one. So this Martin Luther, King, Jr. Day, I pick love.
Dr. King helped organized and plan the Montgomery bus boycott. Rather than lambast the opposition, King had this to say:
“Let us fight passionately and unrelentingly to the goals of justice. Let’s be sure that our hands are clean Let us never fight with falsehood and violence and hate and malice, but always fight with love so that when the day comes and the walls of segregation are completely crumbled in Montgomery, we will be able to live with people as brothers.”
In Montgomery, Alabama, on 17 November 1957, Dr. King delivered his “Loving Your Enemies” sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.
“Love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming, power in the universe,” he said:
The compulsion to respond to hate with hate will always exist, but is that the legacy we want to leave for our children, for future generations?
In all you do, in every way, may you find the grace to choose love.
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