Martin Luther King’s Principles of Non-Violence
1. Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
2. Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding
3. Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.
4. Nonviolence holds that voluntary suffering can educate and transfer
5. Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
6. Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.
“There are only three federal holidays in honor of individuals: President George Washington’s Birthday, Columbus Day and Martin Luther King Day. What most American’s don’t know/recall is that there are actually two holidays in honor of Dr. King: There’s the overall Martin Luther King Day, created by Congress and signed into law in 1983 by President Reagan and then there’s the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, established in 1994 when President Clinton signed the King Holiday and Service Act of 1994. King Service Day is meant to be a day of personal action in Dr. King’s memory on or near his holiday – as its boosters say, a day on, not a day off. It’s promoted by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency that also runs AmeriCorps and other initiatives.
It’s difficult to imagine what the country would be like today without the work that he did while he was with us. Think about what’s going on in the country and the rest of the world and pray for someone like him to come along again and lead us out of the current wilderness that we’re in…”
“We honor Martin Luther King Jr. today, and remember him primarily as a civil rights leader. But he was also a brilliant thinker, strategist and tactician. Just as King borrowed from Gandhi, so smart protest leaders are borrowing from King and applying lessons in the Arab world, in the occupied Palestinian territories, in China and in Russia. Do you share that sense of King’s relevance to protest movements today?”
“Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
What does it mean to us as people living in an age of abuse of power and wanton disregard for the lives and privileges of our citizens throughout the world that we honor Dr. King? Who are your heroes? What did they mean to you? How do we honor their memory? Who lives among us now who embodies these gifts?
“Continuation of the Dream! Colorado Camo Movement to stop senseless youth violence – Healing The Hood! Making Our History. Please Stand with us!”
“In the weeks before his death, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign to speak against inequity, at the urging of Robert Kennedy and Marion Wright Edelman ( later giving rise to the Children’s Defense fund). This tent city last 6 weeks on the Mall in D.C. before being cleared out by police. About 50,000 came from across the nation in May 1968, shortly after Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King’s Assassination.”
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2008/jun/jill_freedman/gallery/
“Martin Luther King was criticized for the effort as being too ambitious, with demands too amorphous, but he felt the basic message of a man (sic) needs a job to support his family with dignity was a realistic, more identifiable goal than some of the longer term civil rights goals of freedom and justice. Demands included jobs, unemployment insurance or guarantee minimum income, low-income housing and education.”
Actual political gains were minimal 200 more counties offered a supplemental food program, and some poor people were hired to run program for the poor.
“How many of us take the time to emulate Dr. King’s teachings? How many of us actually understand the fight he waged on our behalf? How many of us emulate his nonviolent dedication to defending the poor and seeking economic justice in society?”
According to memorial’s designer, the chunk of granite King is seen rising out of represents the stone of hope, and a pair of massive boulders that form a path leading to the statue are meant to evoke the mountains of despair.
On the memorial dedication to Dr. King, “The tension between hope and despair is fitting, given the unfulfilled nature of so many of King’s hopes and dreams for America. Most people forget — or never knew — that his historic “Dream” speech was delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — and that his main message was not one of racial but of economic equality — a message that’s as relevant now as it was then.”
“What a great honor to deliver the sermon for the MLK Sunday service at First Unitarian Denver. King’s mission was not based on a dream, but on a prophetic call for a ‘radical revolution of values’ — but that phrase won’t sell Coca-Cola or McDonalds, can’t be sponsored by QuikTrip or Wells Fargo.”
“I love a Marade! There is nothing like Denver’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Marade to fill us with inspiration and a rededication of purpose at the start of a new year. I love that this year it comes just a few days after we opened our 2012 Session of the Colorado State Assembly, putting our work in perspective and reminding us of the call to service we all answer in office, in activism, and in our community.”
“What Rev. King preached and what many Occupiers seem to believe is that paramount in a republic is job creation, not wealth creation. The duty of government is not to ensure that the rich get richer but to establish equal opportunity.”
“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.”
-Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said these words to a crowd of 1199 NY (now 1199 SEIU) healthcare workers in New York.
At the time, Dr. King spoke, depicting the existence of two Americas, one “flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality” and the other defined by inferior schools and people working full time jobs for part-time wages. “Most of the poor people in our country are working every day.”
Today, the gap between the rich and poor is the worst it’s ever been. The fight still goes on, and it falls to us to realize Dr. King’s vision.
What is the single most important thing all of us can do this year to further Dr. King’s vision?
There are many ways to honor the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. today and his devotion to freedom, civil rights, and social and economic justice. One way is to Stand Up, Get Elected, and Lead with the values Dr. King shared, and help make his Dream an American Reality.
