Who, in our time, will step up and bring people together? We’ve made progress, however, the job is not close to being done.
Awareness is a good place to start. Allow me to briefly quote from Andy Mineo’s song Uncomfortable:
My own people owned people, but they don’t own that
They say racism dead, man our president is black
Two terms in the White House, that don’t mean jack
If we still believe our present ain’t affected by our past
What will we do today?
Here are quotes from a man who gave himself to civil rights – a man we celebrate today – Martin Luther King Jr.
22 Great Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
1. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
2. “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.“
3. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
4. “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
5. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”
6. “The time is always right to do what is right.”
7. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”
8. “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”
9. “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
10. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
11. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
12. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
13. “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
14. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.”
15. “I’ll tell you, I’ve seen the lightning flash. I’ve heard the thunder roll. I felt sin-breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on.”
16. “I often feel like saying, when I hear the question ‘People aren’t ready,’ that it’s like telling a person who is trying to swim, ‘Don’t jump in that water until you learn how to swim.’ When actually you will never learn how to swim until you get in the water.”
17. “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.”
18. “On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But Conscience asks the question ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”
19. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
20. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
21. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
22. “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
[Photo Credit: Wikipedia]
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