Time To Hope Again...
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1968, evil was triumphant for the moment and the world's greatest civil rights leader and visionary was cut down on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis.
It was the darkest day and the darkest moment in the modern history of the civil rights movement in the United States. As a 12 year old boy , I remember the hopeless demeanor of the adults around me that day who gazed at the heavens as if to ask why. On the very day that Dr. King was assassinated, Robert Kennedy gave an impromptu speech and said these words:
"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."
Just two months later, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, opened fire with a .22 caliber revolver and shot Kennedy in the head at close range.The many hopes and dreams of people throughout the world concerning the United States was to be buried for a very long time.It was a very hopeless time indeed.
During that time, a skinny, inconsequential 7 year old black child
attended school at St. Francis of Assisi in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The darkness has faded and Dr. Kings words are prophetic...On Tuesday that little black child from 1968, Barack Obama, is being inaugurated as President of the United States. It is time to hope again...
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1968, evil was triumphant for the moment and the world's greatest civil rights leader and visionary was cut down on the balcony of a hotel in Memphis.
It was the darkest day and the darkest moment in the modern history of the civil rights movement in the United States. As a 12 year old boy , I remember the hopeless demeanor of the adults around me that day who gazed at the heavens as if to ask why. On the very day that Dr. King was assassinated, Robert Kennedy gave an impromptu speech and said these words:
"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."
Just two months later, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, opened fire with a .22 caliber revolver and shot Kennedy in the head at close range.The many hopes and dreams of people throughout the world concerning the United States was to be buried for a very long time.It was a very hopeless time indeed.
During that time, a skinny, inconsequential 7 year old black child
attended school at St. Francis of Assisi in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The darkness has faded and Dr. Kings words are prophetic...On Tuesday that little black child from 1968, Barack Obama, is being inaugurated as President of the United States. It is time to hope again...
posted by mark at 6:48 PM
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