Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Birmingham, Dr. King, Equality, Jail, Racism, thoughts
Since today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I feel that “blogger’s obligation” to write something deep about the day. Instead of writing something new, I’ll share something with you that I wrote a few months back. Nothing uber deep here, just more of a journal entry. We had an assignment for a class to read Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” and discuss with paragraph had the biggest impact on us and why. The following is my response:
I decided that the paragraph where he describes his disappointment in the “white moderate” and their participation in the freedom efforts (which I included below for reference). This paragraph stuck out primarily because of the fourth sentence where Dr. King writes about who he, “should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action.”
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some like Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden and James Dabbs have written about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic and understanding terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of angry policemen who see them as “dirty nigger-lovers.” They, unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.
So the question now becomes: Why did this have such an impact on me? (more…)
