A Spiritual Break with Martin Luther King, Jr.
An Inauguration Day communion with justice and truth.
Today, January 20, 2025, is more than merely the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration. It’s the date we commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have turned 96 years old last week had he not been assassinated.
I’m probably not the only one in the country today who’s yearning for a reaffirmation of values and some moral uplift. What better way to accomplish that than by communing with Dr. King’s moral witness, as glimpsed in his speeches?
This is the passage that passed before my eyes as the inauguration droned in the background:
Five years ago, (John F. Kennedy) said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." [Applause] Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.
... We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society, when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
Today, those giant triplets—racism, materialism, and materialism—are riding high in the saddle. Anyone who challenges their supremacy is likely to face the same ostracism and rejection that Dr. King experienced at the end of his life. But his memory lives, while those of his enemies are forgotten or shrouded in disgrace.
I compiled some clips from Dr. King’s speeches on this occasion last year. The video is above and some written excerpts are below. I’m using them to take a brief vacation from the news of the day. I think of it as a spiritual palate cleanser.
Most of all, I’m using these words as a reminder that truth is not only just; it’s also beautiful.
From Decency to Equality
It's much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee an annual income, for instance, to get rid of poverty for Negroes and all poor people. It's much easier to integrate a bus than it is to make genuine integration a reality and quality education a reality in our schools. It's much easier to integrate even a public park than it is to get rid of slums.
I think we are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle, where we have moved from a struggle for decency, which characterized our struggle for ten or twelve years, to a struggle for genuine equality. And this is where we are getting the resistance because there was never any intention to go this far.
Dulling the Conscience
Many of the values of so-called white middle-class society are values that need to be reviewed and re-evaluated. And in a real sense, they need to be changed. When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, it loses its social perspective and programs of social uplift suffer.
Justice on the Cheap
I think the biggest problem now is that we got our gains over the last twelve years at bargain rates, so to speak. It didn't cost the nation anything. In fact, it helped the economic side of the nation to integrate lunch counters and public accommodations. It didn't cost the nation anything to get the right to vote established.
Now, we are confronting issues that cannot be solved without costing the nation billions of dollars. Now, I think this is where we're getting our greatest resistance. They may put it on many other things, but we can't get rid of slums and poverty without it costing the nation something.
A Message for Gaza
We drop leaflets on the Vietnamese promising them democracy and justice ...
… They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go, primarily women and children and aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roll through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees ...
What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new torches in the concentration camps of Europe?
….We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village.
“Radical Redistribution”
The second aspect of our afflicted society is extreme materialism. An Asian writer has portrayed our dilemma in candid terms. He says, "You call your thousand material devices labor-saving machinery, yet you are forever busy with the multiplying of your machinery. You grow increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more. And wherever you are, you want to go somewhere else. Your devices are neither time-saving nor soul-saving machinery.”
… The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad. We must also realize that the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.
“The Disease of Militarism”
This war has played havoc with the destiny of the entire world. It has torn up the Geneva Agreement. It has seriously impaired the United Nations. It has exacerbated the hatred between continents and, worse still, between races. It has frustrated our development at home, telling our own underprivileged citizens that we place insatiable military demands above their most critical needs.
… The American people must have an opportunity to vote into oblivion those who cannot detach themselves from militarism.
“Spiritual Death”
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look on easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look at thousands of working people displaced from their jobs with reduced income as a result of automation, while the profits of the employers remain intact and say this is not just.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. So, what we must all see is that these are revolutionary times.
“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”
The full text of that historic speech is here:
Thank you for this today. The truth IS beautiful. 🙏
Thank you.