Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.
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