InTheWeeds

Martin Luther King Day 2005

Since the inception of this holiday I have never worked for a company that recognized this day as a holiday. Each January 17th I have spent some time, like I have today looking deeper into this man, this thoughts, his actions and his legacy.

Like many people who do not admit it at first, I was skeptical about the value of elevating this man, but each year I grow past my initial ignorance and draw closer to him and what he stood for. These yearly visits with Dr. King have convinced me of not only his value, but his rightful place among the founders, patriots, statesmen and leaders of this great Country.

This day should be a day to reflect not only who he was and what he stood for, but should also be the day to elevate those who are today making this country into more of what it was always intended to be, the land where all men are created equal.

Real growth and development take effort and real justice and freedom take sacrifice. If you don’t think so, then go read Dr. King’s letter to Clergymen written 41 years and 8 months ago yesterday from jail in Birmingham, Alabama. http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf

He speaks of freedom, honor, nonviolence, tension, keeping promises, injustice, action, and consequences. Not just speaks mind you, but describes how it has been delivered and is being lived out. He lived presenting their very bodies for the cause of justice and right just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did with Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel in the Bible.

Dr. King uses the analogy of sin separating us from God no different than the sin that separates us one from another and he is right. I don’t hear those who consider themselves the voice of the African-American community speaking with those terms. However there is a new voice rising from the African-American community that does speak in those terms. The words of faith, of responsibility and of ‘color-blind’ brotherhood.

The struggle Dr. King speaks of still is not complete and this writing is not making that assumption, but the wisdom that is so skillfully penned in the letter needs to be applied across a much broader spectrum here in 2005.

Dr. King’s letter I believe is an ‘important read’ for every Christian, especially Christian pastors and leaders. Not just as a rebuke of complacency about racism as Dr. King meant it in his day, but as a rebuke of complacency about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the need for action in communities to get the Gospel out to those people so that the “brotherhood” Dr. King spoke of can be realized.

This letter also needs to be read by all those who oppose the war in Iraq and President Bush’s fervent drive to see freedom spread over the world. Dr. King says that “freedom is never voluntarily given” and he is right.

The political left who want to call Iraq a new Vietnam need to come back to Martin Luther King, Jr. and absorb his words of freedom and that “the time is always ripe to do right” and that “progress never rolls on the wheels of inevitability, it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God…”

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever… The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself…” and in Iraq those who are readying to vote and those who are training to defend the voters like Dr. King in Birmingham have put their very bodies at risk for the just cause of democracy.

Today the news media should be filled with special stories of how people are reaching up and becoming home owners, how in the midst of challenges people are doing the work of education, entrepreneurship, justice and freedom.

Unfortunately the stories will be filled with the whiners who complain about what isn’t and want to wait to get what they think is to be given them. The Mainstream Media cover these and others who in the true measure of time have demonstrated that they are not in it for the people, but for the money.

"There is [a] class of [black] people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the
wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people
do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their
jobs." Booker T. Washington

To see alternatives in leadership in the African-American Community see Project 21, The National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives, where entrepreneurial drive, family values and individual responsibility are the leadership qualities and would submit that these leaders, who you don’t hear of every day in the mainstream media are the leaders that Dr. King would identify with in his Birmingham letter. (http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21Index.html )

Look at the abuse that Bill Cosby has received recently for his comments on education, responsibility and positive actions if you want to see that Booker T. Washington’s statement is still true. Drill down in Project21 site to “Bill Cosby, You Say the Darndest Things”, by Kevin Martin and Tom Florip in the “papers”
( http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVMartinCosby604.html ) section of the site to get more detail on Cosby and other African-American comedians who are taking on leadership issues even in their entertainment.

In closing, for those of you who have not really grasped the meaning of this holiday, and to those of you who have, I strongly recommend you pull up the link and read the Birmingham letter. One of these days, this holiday will be recognized by all.

And as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle…we will reach our goal of freedom… because the goal of America is freedom.

LivingTheDream

posted by livingthedream @ 5:50 PM