Three speeches
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 'Letter From A Birmingham Jail'
..........
There are changes we can make from the outside-in - those are the job of the President of the United States and the Congress and the governors and state legislators and mayors - raising standards, community policing. And there is something each of us here can do - from the inside-out - and in the spirit of my faith, I count myself as one of you to turn this thing around from the inside-out as well as the outside-in. Otherwise the outside changes won't matter.
Sometimes, there are no answers from the outside in. Sometimes, the answers have to come from the values and the love and the stirrings and the voices that speak to us from within.
- President Bill Clinton, 'Speech in Memphis, Tennessee on 1993 MLK Day
..........
That’s the thing I find the most important about the sermon Dr. King delivered here that day. He did not direct his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war. He issued a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.
A revolution whose starting point is personal responsibility, of course, but whose animating force is the belief that we cannot stand idly by and wait for others to right the wrongs of the world.
And this, in my view, is at the heart of what we should remember and celebrate on this day. This is the dream we must commit ourselves to realizing.
- John Edwards, 2007 MLK Day Speech
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 'Letter From A Birmingham Jail'
..........
There are changes we can make from the outside-in - those are the job of the President of the United States and the Congress and the governors and state legislators and mayors - raising standards, community policing. And there is something each of us here can do - from the inside-out - and in the spirit of my faith, I count myself as one of you to turn this thing around from the inside-out as well as the outside-in. Otherwise the outside changes won't matter.
Sometimes, there are no answers from the outside in. Sometimes, the answers have to come from the values and the love and the stirrings and the voices that speak to us from within.
- President Bill Clinton, 'Speech in Memphis, Tennessee on 1993 MLK Day
..........
That’s the thing I find the most important about the sermon Dr. King delivered here that day. He did not direct his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war. He issued a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.
A revolution whose starting point is personal responsibility, of course, but whose animating force is the belief that we cannot stand idly by and wait for others to right the wrongs of the world.
And this, in my view, is at the heart of what we should remember and celebrate on this day. This is the dream we must commit ourselves to realizing.
- John Edwards, 2007 MLK Day Speech
posted by Jmac at 8:52 AM
1 Comments:
Thanks for this, Jmac!
"Letter..." is probably my favorite MLK speech/read.
I've been slowly working my way through "Parting the Waters" by Taylor Branch and it has been fascinating and a real eye-opener, page-turner though it is a HUGE book and I've had very little "reading for pleasure" time for the past several months. It covers the King years from about 1953 and it's incredibly in-depth. The book is more about America than specifically MLK and you learn a great deal about Nixon, LBJ, RFK, and JFK - some things that may surprise you about all of them. I love the parts that include John Lewis! That man paid his dues in ways that are hard to even read about much less to live it with the kind of courage that he displayed!
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