St. Martin

Today marked the 40th anniversary of assassination of one American who was truly blessed. Martin Luther King, should be elevated to sainthood. His life and his writings give testimony to his powerful spirit. I was fifteen years old and whenever I loved him then. My father whom I loved, was a bigot and he hated Dr. King. At one time in my life I was stationed at the Naval Air Station in Albany, Ga. where Dr. King was once jailed. I remember listening to his famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and being deeply moved. Martin Luther King was a prophet in every sense of the word. He really lived the Jesus message and like Mahatma Gandhi used Christian principles of non-violence and non-cooperation with evil to bring this nation to its knees.

Like Christ and later Gandhi, he was killed by powerful forces that feared him. The FBI infiltrated the Civil Rights movement because J. Edgar Hoover feared that Dr. King was a Communist sympathizer. That proved to be false, but the FBI used information it gained in its surveillance in an attempt to discredit Martin. He was 39 when he was murdered April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN. God bless Dr. King and his memory.

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Remembering Martin

We’ll soon celebrate Dr. King’s birthday. In the years since his death and especially since his birthday became a national holiday there has been a collective effort by government and the media to sanitize Martin’s message. This quote came from an article in this week’s National Catholic Reporter by Fr. John Dear and it’s attributed to Martin Luther King. This is the Dr. King I remember in the 1960s, a prophetic voice of non-violence.

“After we get there,” he said, “we’ll call the peace movement in, and try to close down the Pentagon. I don’t know what Jesus had as his demands other than ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.’ My demand is ‘Repent, America.’ We live in a sick, neurotic nation, but this campaign is based upon hope. Hope,” he concluded, “is the final refusal to give up.”–Martin Luther King

Read more here.