Happy King Day

Today our team went to our local Martin Luther King day parade in the Crenshaw district of South Central LA. It was a great time- a pretty diverse group attended this celebration. I was surprised to see many Asians represented in the parade. There was also the typical politicians trying to convince everyone how much they love the community, the mostly African-American TV anchors and reporters happily waving, and big corporations trying to convince minority communities that they really 'care'; Coke, Lawry's, etc. But even with all the posturing, we still had fun.

For more on Dr. King see the King Center website and Stanford's great Dr. King Project.

I wish we all would focus more on Dr. King's writings and speeches. Everyone knows his "I Have a Dream" speech, but there are so many others just as good if nor even more profound. One of my favorite Dr. King quotes is...

Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the 'fight with fire' method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permamnent; only love can do that. Yes, love--which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one's enemies--is the solution to the race problem.

--Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957