Daily Verse | Genesis 41:41
So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.”
Monday’s Reading: Genesis 41-44
It’s Monday and the annual day on which we recognize the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was a Baptist minister and social activist who is remembered for his leading role in the American civil rights movement. An advocate of organized non-violent resistance based on the approach of Mahatma Gandhi, King led peaceful marches and boycotts to draw attention to the segregation of blacks across America.
An ardent student of the teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Dr. King was much impressed with the Mahatma’s befriending of his adversaries, most of whom professed profound admiration for Gandhi’s courage and intellect. Dr. King believed that the age-old tradition of hating one’s opponents was not only immoral, but bad strategy which perpetuated the cycle of revenge and retaliation. Only nonviolence, he believed, had the power to break the cycle of retributive violence and create lasting peace through reconciliation.
In a 1957 speech, Birth of A New Nation, Dr. King said, “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness.”
Due in no small part to King’s leadership, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
The irony, of course, is that more than a half-century later, the progressive Left, Black Lives Matter, Inc., Antifa activists and the flying monkeys in the mainstream media have abandoned King’s approach and are using violence and shame to accomplish their mission of destroying “white” culture, rather than be “included” in it.
They’ve also set back race relations to the 100 years of Jim Crow laws, i.e., enforced or legalized racial segregation. You know, “separate but equal.” We now have separate commencements, housing and activities for Blacks on school campuses.
“The aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness,” indeed.
In essence, the radicals have gone to great lengths to undo all that King accomplished and that we commemorate on this day. I wouldn’t be surprised if his monument in Washington, D.C., is destroyed someday by the self-righteous judges of woke for King’s attempts to integrate black society with “white supremacists.”
In the meantime, I encourage you to appreciate who King was and how he led the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s. One way you can do that is to read his Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he wrote one of his famous axioms: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He explains in this letter his approach to non-violent direct-action demonstrations and he justified to his critics why he was in Birmingham and why he accepted being in jail.
He was a principled man of action—with emphasis on “principled”—something sorely lacking in today’s leaders.
