Remembering

In preparation for our small group meeting tonight, I had a chance to reread some of the speeches and writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I wondered why I don't do that more often, but I'm glad I did today. These words are no less relevant 50+ years later, even on the heels of an historical inauguration.

True peace is not merely the absence of some negative force - tension, confusion, or war; it is the presence of some positive force - justice, good will and brotherhood.
Dr. King's address before the First Annual Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change, Montgomery, AL, December 1956

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.
From an article appearing in the magazine Christian Century, 1960

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advised the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963