We are all children of the civil-rights movement, whether we want to be or not

[kpete]

.......it is possible to have a politics that transcends the mere purchase and sale of interest; one in which words have both power and integrity.



For the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dreaming was not optional. It was a requirement of citizenship to envision a fairer, more prosperous nation no longer shackled by racism and poverty. It was a duty to imagine a world no longer ravaged by senseless wars. His most famous speech was less an invitation to share his epic dream than a commandment…

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ON PEACE (1964):
"Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1947904,00.html#ixzz1jdeM9grt

On Our National Holiday, America's Everlasting War

We are all children of the civil-rights movement, whether we want to be or not, whether we are its direct descendants or whether we were adopted into it through the profound changes that movement wrought in the definition of what an American is. We are all children of the civil-rights movement, and this weekend is our national holiday. There is nothing mysterious about that. We make ourselves mysteries to each other because the cost of knowing our solution may be too ugly to bear.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/race-in-america-2012-6638829#ixzz1jdaGbQMw

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So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome.

http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/650315.asp

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Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at Glenville High School preserved on little-known recording (audio)

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/01/martin_luther_king_jrs_speech.html

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and yet.........

"Mr. Conservative" (Barry Goldwater) voted against the holiday.

Ron Paul voted against the bill that created the holiday -- twice.

77 of the 90 nay votes in final bill in the House were cast by Republicans.

18 of the 22 nay votes in the final bill in the Senate were cast by Republicans.

And the Greatest American in the History of America, Ronald "States' Rights" Reagan, only reluctantly signed the bill into law because it arrived on his desk with veto-proof majorities. Before he signed it, he said,
http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/reminder-if-republicans-had-their-way-m

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ON NONVIOLENCE (From Birmingham jail, 1963):
"In your statement, you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of the Crucifixion?"

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1947904,00.html#ixzz1jdeiX6L4


ON NONCOMFORMITY (1963):
"This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Dangerous passions of pride, hatred and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; truth lies prostrate on the rugged hills of nameless Calvaries. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1947904,00.html#ixzz1jdeZdsi3