Thank You, Dr. King

I am grateful for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is frightening to me to contemplate what our world would be like without his leadership and inspiration. It is sobering to reflect on how much further we might be along the path to a just world if he had lived. 

I was 14 years old when he was assassinated. I remember the news, but I had no concept of the magnitude of our loss. I lived in a small town; I only remember one African American student in my high school classes. I knew so little then. 

Here are some quotations from Dr. King that cause me to pause and reflect on my own 

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. "

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."