Today, like many other people around the country, I thought of Dr King and how much he contributed to everyone in America. People tend to think of King as a leader for blacks and the black movement. In fact, he was a leader for all people and directed the forward movement of human and civil rights for every citizen of the world. There are so many speeches and quotes by Dr. King and to pick just one is nearly impossible. Clearly his, "I have a Dream speech" is the most famous and one of my favorites. But today I was thinking about one of his other speeches. It is, as important today, when we talk about divisions in America, as it was on that day in 1963. Part of that speech follows:
"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away it's vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the truth with the false and the false with the truth." Martin Luther King Jr.
We all could use Dr. Kings love and unity today in America and around the world.
My favorite part of the "dream" speech is when he says that he has a dream that one day his children will be judged by the content of their character not by the color of their skin.
ReplyDeleteToo many people skip over the "content of their character" part. He did not say, there is no standard and that you can act a fool. He was a man that understood every individual is responsible for his/her actions. And that skin tone should neither aid or subdue the judgment of our character.