MLK

     On this date, 4th April, exactly 48 years ago, one of my heroes was shot.

     Even though his cultural inheritance is so far from where I grew up both timely and geographically, I can help but feel close to the idealistic and spiritual inheritance. Martin Luther King was more than a peaceful fighter for black civil rights, for me he has always been a hallmark for the fight for human decency. Decency which is not bound by colour or nationality. A lesson in universal human decency, that's what MLK is for me.

Here are a few of my favourite Dr King quotes :)

 “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” 

“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

“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.”

“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.”

PS. Its funny how after Martin Luther King was shot (1968), hard drugs were introduced to black neighbourhoods (where you could buy heroin for as little as $5) and a few years later the war on drugs (1971) appears out of nowhere, totally not specifically targeted to hippies (protesting against the war in Vietnam and supporting civil rights, 1960s) and black people (MLK and civil rights movement, 1960s), which ends up in what we have today in america (like right now)- the majority of black people incarcerated and living below any decent human standard of living. But hey ho, that's my conspiracy theorist part of the brain connecting imaginary dots. Was it not the best way to break down a movement by demoralising its participants?

PS2: FYI if you still have any doubts, there it is: