This is obviously Part Three:
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So, let’s listen a bit to some of these powerful prophetic words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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?"

ON NONCONFORMITY (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."

ON BLACK POWER (1967): "Today's despair is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow's justice. Black Power is an implicit and often explicit belief in black separatism. Yet behind Black Power's legitimate and necessary concern for group unity and black identity lies the belief that there can be a separate black road to power and fulfillment. Few ideas are more unrealistic. There is no salvation for the Negro through isolation."

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."

ON THE DREAM OF FREEDOM (1963): "So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed . . . that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. 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. I have a dream today. And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true."

ON FREEDOM (1963): "So let freedom ring. From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring. But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. And when this happens, when we let it ring, we will speed that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, free at last/Thank God Almighty, we're free at last."

ON HIS OWN FUTURE (April 3, 1968): "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. I won't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

ON INJUSTICE Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

ON THE REASON FOR HATRED Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.

ON THE ROLE OF CONSCIENCE There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.

ON OPPRESSION You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression ... If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955)

So, sisters and brothers in Christ at Aberdeen First Presbyterian Church, when we say we want to follow the Bible in all that we do, let’s remember that this is a high calling, that will put us at odds with the “powers that be” in any setting in which we find ourselves because, though we are created in the image of God, we apparently don’t always think as God would have us think and behave.

Yesterday, I saw the documentary film, KING: A Filmed Record at the Clinton Street Theater. This is a fairly obscure 1970 film about King's civil rights advocacy, covering 1955-1968. The story is mostly told through news and other archival footage. There is very little narration, and on-screen titles are used sparingly.

The footage was primarily of King's protest marches in the South and in Chicago. Many of these marches resulted in people being imprisoned and in people being injured or killed. The amount of violence perpetrated against the civil rights protesters by police and/or opponents to the civil rights cause was staggering and very graphically presented in a way that people who didn't live through that era (such as I) probably haven't experienced before. There was footage of people being trampled, clubbed, soaked with fire hoses, gassed, and carried away to prison.

The participants in these protests very likely knew the kind of danger that they were potentially putting themselves into. The lingering thought this leaves, in my opinion, is: What an ugly, inhospitable place the world must have been for Blacks living in the South back then, that they would willingly subject themselves to that much risk by participating in these marches. This film was a very moving tribute to King and his courageous allies.

I've not seen that film Alfredo, but I was just old enough to know that bad things were happening.

I heard most of the stories through my parents eyes. I do remember the utter shock of King's death followed the equally shocking death of Robert Kennedy just a month later.

As I watched the inauguration today with my wife I couldn't help but think of a few that were in attendance, were also at the King rally for his famous "Dream" speech.

We were watching NBC's coverage and after Obama's speech they went to a black reporter in an Atlanta 7th grade classroom where the reporter shared a childhood memory. Then he asked a young African-American 13 year old what his thoughts were on President Obama's speech. The student answered..."now when you see a black man you won't see a drug dealer or an athlete, you see a doctor, a lawyer, or a president."

> "now when you see a black man you won't see a drug dealer or an athlete, you see a
> doctor, a lawyer, or a president."

Wow! I couldn't have said it better myself!

That's awesome!