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