Doing the right thing…
He could have been one of those folks who believed that violence was the only way to get someone’s attention (we’ve got far too many of those kinds of people even to this day).
He could have encouraged the masses to riot, loot or burn just to make a point.
But he didn’t. Martin Luther King Jr., had the audacity to believe that there was a spark of reason in everyone, even if took a while to emerge.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness,” he said. “Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
So he persevered, often against seemingly insurmountable odds, and worked to open eyes and hearts and minds to the basic tenet that, as it says in the Declaration of Independence that shaped this country, “all men are created equal.”
As simple as that sounds, it still seems strange that only a few decades ago there were those in this great nation who believed our founding fathers’ declarations were meant but for a select few.
“The time is always right to do what is right,” Dr. King said.
Still, even against the odds he faced, he asserted that “we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.”
That forgiveness is still lacking today in so many areas of this world. Scores of battles are over but the war is not yet won.
Given the pockets of hatred that continue to make the headlines, we have to sometimes wonder if the war will ever be over.
In so many ways, Martin Luther King, Jr., was our Ghandi, believing steadfastly that peaceful protest was the preferred tactic of civil disobedience, the only real way to accomplish parity in life, to get the job done.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy,” he said. Oh how that applies these days, right?
“Strength does not come from physical capacity,” Mahatma Ghandi extolled. “It comes from an indomitable will.”
Dr. King had the will, and it is up to all of us to learn that the only way to deal with an outstretched hand is to grasp it in love and friendship.
Then, my friends, we shall indeed overcome.