Martin Luther King, Jr was born at Atlanta, Georgia on this day in 1929. He was taught to read at home before going to school and advanced rapidly, skipping two grades and entering Morehouse College at age 15. The son of a Baptist minister, he was ordained in 1947. Inspired by a parishioner named Rosa Parks, he organized the boycott of Montgomery's bus service. Then he had a dream, following it made him one of the few who have visibly changed the world. The world resists change and Dr King was murdered, but the dream continued and his words live on.
“Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
“We shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.”
“Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.”
“We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.”
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
All from Martin Luther King, Jr, 1929 – 1968
I can relate, TV. My parents also viewed MLK as a troublemaker. That’s when I decided that my parents and I had come to a political parting of the ways.
My Grandfather considered him to be a trouble maker at the time. But he was born in the 1890s. My grandfather and I disagreed a lot back then.
MLK.
Another soul I have installed in my Pantheon of American heroes. I feel fortunate that I was alive to witness first-hand his monumental influence over our country and the changes he made to our way of thinking. I’m especially glad that I was an adult when he came upon the scene and was therefore able to appreciate the necessity for those changes. I didn’t have to read about the events from a history book or watch old film footage of history in the making. In other words, I didn’t need to be indoctrinated into perceiving him as, “And here’s another Great American Hero from the past”. I was living in that past and I was a witness to it and I am grateful.