M a r t in L u t h e r K in g J r .“ *1 R o sa P a r k s
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January 11,2006
I IM H I S T I IV I
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Page BI S
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A Man o f Peace
WAR
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King’s stand ¿igilinst war
From “ Beyond Vietnam, ” April 4th, 1967:
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“A true revolution o f values will lay hand on the world order and say o f war, ‘This wav
o f settling differences is not just. This business o f burning human beings with napalm, o f
filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, o f injecting poisonous drugs o f hate into
the veins o f peoples norm ally humane, o f sending men home fro m dark and bloody
battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled
with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money
on military defense than on programs o f social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America,
the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution o f
values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our
priorities so that the pursuit o f peace will take precedence over the pursuit o f war. There is
nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have
fashioned it into a brotherhood.
"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted
with the fierce urgency o f now. In this unfolding conundrum o f life and history, there is such
a thing as being to late. Procrastination is still the thief o f time. Life often leaves us standing
bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs o f men does not
remain at jlo o d -it ebbs. We may cry out desperately fo r time to pause in her passage, but time
is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jum bled residues o f
numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.' There is an invisible book
o f life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: The
moving finger writes, and having writ moves o n .'
"We have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move
past indecision to action. We must fin d new ways to speak fo r peace...and justice throughout
the world, a world that borders on our doors. I f we do not act, we shall surely be dragged
down the long, dark, and shameful corridors o f time reserved fo r those who possess power
without compassion, might without morality', and strength without sight...
'And if we only make the right choice, we will be able to transform the pending cosmic elegy
into a creative psalm o f peace. I f we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform
the jangling discords o f our world into a beautiful symphony o f brotherhood. I f we will but
make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the
world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream ."
From his last sermon at Ehenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967:
"Don 't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be
a sort o f policeman of the whole world. God has a way o f standing before the nations with
justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America ‘you are too arrogant, and i f you don't
change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone o f your power, and I will place it
in the hands o f a nation that doesn't even know my name. He still and know that I'm God. Men
will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall
not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anym ore.’ I don't know about you,
/ ain't going to study war anymore. ”
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On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot by James Earl Ray while on the balcony of a
Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was only 39 at the time of his death. Dr. King was turning his
attention to a nationwide campaign to help the poor at the time of his assassination. King had never
wavered in insisting that nonviolence, inspired by Ghandi, must remain the central tactic of thecivil-
rights movement, nor in his faith that everyone in America would some day attain equal justice.
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and win, in a game of Crazy Eights. Or the amazement in their eyes as your children see the countryside for the very first time. Imagine sitting
together in the Dining Car and actually sharing a thousand words over lunch. For memories that last a lifetime, get closer and smile
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