Martin Luther King Jr. was not only a great leader and humanitarian but an amazingly powerful writer as well.
One of my favorite books is his renowned Why We Can’t Wait: Letter from Birmingham Jail, and it contains this haunting passage:
“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’
But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim…
when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky…
when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you…
when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’…
then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”
(Paragraph breakdown mine for emphasis.)
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyone. Be kind to each other.
Image via the Seattle Times.