Martin Luther King – The BeZine

As many know, today in the United States – July 4 – (I think it is already July 5 is some parts of the world) we celebrate our Independence Day, something that means a lot to us and may be greeted with mixed feelings if you live elsewhere in the world. Hence, I apprecate Terri’s handling of this occasion on her blog. I would also submit, that whatever good we reap in the world, whatever good this human race is able to accomplish, is done on the shoulders of those who came before us and laid the groundwork for equality and human rights. No matter our race or nationality, we all owe a debt to such diverse peacemakers as Martin Luther King, Thich Nhat Hanh, Nelson Mandla and Dennis Brutus and others on a list too long to share here. If you have someone whose work of peace and love is particularly meaningful to you, perhaps you will tell us who and why in the comment section. Thank you! Jamie Dedes

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (1929-1988), American Clergyman, Activist, and Leader of the American Civil-Rights Movement

Delivering I Have a Dream, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. U.S.A.

No one articulated the dream of human dignity with quite the same poetry and passion as Martin Luther King, Jr.

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!”

Editorial Note: We humans struggle for freedom in many circumstances and many places. In November of the same year that Dr. King delivered this speech, the first world-wide Prisoner of Conscience Week was honored. Such events remind us that no wo/man is truly free until all are free.

MAY ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FIND PEACE

The photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr. is in the public domain and is viewed here courtesy of Wikipedia. The video of Dr. King was uploaded to YouTube by sullentoys . The Joyful Noise gospel acapella group was uploaded to YouTube by LadyKej.