Dallas Morning News
While Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for pressing societal change through nonviolent resistance, that is only part of his legacy. Dr. King's short but fertile life also should remind everyone that justice must be vigorously and constantly pursued.
Each generation has cancers to vanquish. The brutal murder of James Byrd in East Texas is a reminder that hatred and intolerance still exist. Similarly, the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon drive home the same message as do the despicable retaliatory acts of vandalism against mosques and innocent people who look to be of Arab descent. Dr. King taught that hatred and intolerance diminish both the oppressor and the oppressed. In times of national stress, this lesson bears repeating.
Ironically, like so many who have risen to greatness, Dr. King began as a reluctant leader. He didn't seek greatness as much as events thrust greatness upon him. When he answered the call, his charisma, passion and fortitude summoned a great nation to a moral reckoning. Yet to remember him as many do, solely as a man who did great things in a time that has passed, is to diminish all that is transcendent about his message.
He had the courage to answer the call in the face of personal risk. He had the eloquence to inspire others to the justness of the cause. His contributions are extraordinary and enduring.
One wonders what words Dr. King might have had for the events of Sept. 11. For sure he would have been saddened, and like all Americans outraged by the wanton expression of hatred and intolerance. He, too, cried when a bomb killed four little girls worshipping inside the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.
On this day of observance of his birth, one realizes that while much has been overcome, much still must be overcome. Historians ponder what turns Dr. King's life would have taken had he lived. Some suggest he would have been a more vocal critic of injustice beyond these shores; others that his leadership and influence were eroding.
The legacy that endures is a message that all mankind must accept the challenge to reject violence and prejudice, wherever these reside. That is a message for all the ages.
Boston Globe
Gary Chassman asked himself who the country's 20th century heroes were. He had certain standards: no sports stars or celebrities. They had to be people who continue to influence the world.
The name that kept coming to him was Martin Luther King.
The evidence was abundant. King's legacy had grown since his death. School children and members of Congress said King affected their work, their passion, the cut of their lives. And artists responded through poems, prose, songs, and paintings.
A publishing industry veteran, Chassman set out to do a book of visual art inspired by King. The idea grew to include a touring museum exhibit, ''In the Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,'' sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution.
Chassman sent out over 3,000 letters seeking art. The result was 700 works. A scholarly advisory committee was formed. A team of curators chose 120 works, including pieces by Boston-area artists John Wilson and L'Merchie Frazier.
Both the book and the exhibit use photographs -- images of protesters, marches, and King speaking -- to provide historic context.
The book includes a poem by Nikki Giovanni and essays by Gwendolyn Brooks and Georgia congressman John Lewis, as well as photographs of murals, installations, and other works that aren't in the exhibit.
The exhibit has its opening celebration today in Detroit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. ...
King's name is a rallying call. His speeches are fiery inspiration. But even if memories of the name, the words, and the holiday fade, we must remember that once there was a man who refused to suffer what was wrong in stillness or silence. Once there was a man, and now there's all of us able to build the country by refusing to suffer what's wrong.
Houston Chronicle
Martin Luther King Jr. changed the hearts of people and the civil rights laws for the better in this country in the mid-1960s as has no other American before or since.
Today, as the nation commemorates his birthday in the wake of the Sept. 11th terrorists attacks, we would do well be remember Dr. King's faith in the ultimate goodness of human beings which he believed would one day end hatred, racism, violence, bloodshed and evil.
"I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up," said Dr. King on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. "I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and non-violent redemptive goodwill proclaim the rule of the land."
Unfortunately, as the terrible Sept. 11 events remind us, neither we as a nation nor the peoples of other countries around the world have reached that stage yet.
But King's belief in mankind remains as hopeful today as it was almost 40 years ago.
His dream should be our dream.
Atlanta Journal Constitution
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s profound imprint on the American conscience has deepened since his passing, and with good reason.
When the nation was at war with itself over civil rights, King showed us the powerful wisdom of confronting violence with nonviolence, of meeting searing hatred with unflagging love. His enduring legacy stands as proof that bullets may kill great men, but not great ideas.
But today, even as we celebrate the anniversary of King's birthday, we find ourselves in a strange new war. Four months after Sept. 11, we're still mourning the dead and searching for the missing. The rest of us are listed among the walking wounded, a group of bleary-eyed survivors left to grapple with the horrific aftermath of the terrorists' handiwork.
To some, King's anti-violence stance seems noble but impractical. ...
How can we consider turning the other cheek when madmen have already slaughtered thousands of innocents on our shores? With mounting evidence of more terrorists lurking around the world (or around the corner), it seems more sensible to arm ourselves to the teeth than to join hands and sing kumbaya with the bad guys.
But King was more than a visionary; he was a pragmatist. He understood that even the loftiest dreams were useless without a concrete strategy to accomplish them. ...
Today the challenge to answer the call to nonviolent action is fraught with different dangers. For starters, it will require resisting the blood lust for revenge that is understandable in the wake of Sept. 11, but also unsustainable and ultimately destructive. It will demand standing up to politicians and pundits who would compromise our birthright and sacrifice our humanity in the name of vengeance against our enemies. ...
In a 1956 speech, King laid out a vision for those embarking on the difficult path of nonviolence, and what to expect if they summoned the fortitude to persevere:
"The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community," King said. "It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men."
Salt Lake Tribune
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated nearly 34 years ago, on April 4, 1968. Yet, as today's holiday, which bears his name, illustrates, his dream of racial equality and universal brotherhood lives on. That dream is kept alive not by the holiday itself but by the nation's striving to reach the goals that the slain civil rights leader championed.
As in King's day, well-meaning people disagree about how those goals can be best achieved. That is the unfinished business of Dr. King's legacy. It is manifested in ongoing debates about affirmative action, equal employment opportunity, racial profiling, hate-crimes laws, welfare reform, slavery reparations, income redistribution, immigration, health-care policy, even arms control. The list seems endless. When one stops to consider the range of issues touched by questions of race and economic class, and the influence of Dr. King's moral leadership in shaping those debates, even now, the reason for today's holiday is self-evident. ...
King's life and death are now historical facts, rather than events in living memory, for millions of Americans. Haley died in 1992. But these and other events surrounding this year's King holiday help to keep Dr. King's ideals and those of the civil rights movement alive, and more importantly, the continuing work that flows from them.
Washington Post
To spend this Martin Luther King Day only reliving old injustices and recalling powerful images of past evils is to miss the importance of Dr. King's message. More enduring than the racial animosities and oppression that gave rise to the civil rights movement that he led, Dr. King's message was that we could, as a people, be as good as our professed ideals; that we could live up to our promises; that as a nation, we could profoundly change our ways. That message, and the actions it inspired, sparked a civil rights revolution, changing America for the better. But despite enormous racial progress in the past 50 years, the challenge on this King Day is to fully live out the meaning of the American creed.
Economic and social advancements of Americans descended from slaves and others historically excluded by race have been profound, thanks in good measure to the civil rights movement, public policy and the start of a transformation in American society that Dr. King dreamed about. But no one is claiming that the emergence of a black middle class signals an end to America's racial problems or the beginning of a society no longer troubled by color. We still fall short of the mark. Our differences still stand in the way.
Redressing injustices based not only on race, but on sex, ethnicity and religion, is only part of the task. The lowering of racial barriers has not made poverty, unemployment and disparities in income and wealth things of the past. Gaps measured by race loom large in school performance, health status, incarceration rates and, of course, the death penalty. Skin color, it is widely feared in 2002, increases the likelihood of being stopped, searched and arrested. More than 30 years after Martin Luther King's death, and nearly two decades after the inauguration of this holiday in his name, much remains to be done.
Sweeping away those barriers that divide us will not be easy, just as ridding the country of laws sanctioning a dual society and discriminatory places of public accommodation was a daunting challenge. But Dr. King, whose birthday is honored today, guided that profound redirection in America. His message, which endures in 2002, should be inspiration for the unfinished work ahead.
Wichita Eagle
Martin Luther King Jr. was larger than life while he lived, and he has grown larger still in the 34 years since he was slain by an assassin's bullet on a Memphis motel balcony. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning preacher's inspiring life and words are now studied in schools, analyzed by scholars and celebrated in public gatherings, many times in conjunction with the national holiday that, since 1983, has fallen on or near his birthday of Jan. 15. Leading up to and including today's holiday observance, Wichitans have remembered him with a parade, a variety show, school presentations and speeches.
He was an extraordinary man who lived and died for the nation-changing cause of civil rights, true. He showed the difference that one great man, working from the grass roots up, can make in the world. But even the greatest of men slowly recede into history, along with the generation that witnessed their work. What's with the Rev. King's staying power?
We think his legacy endures untouched because his dream remains so elusive. As much as he changed America -- seeding legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, with his nonviolent protests and boycotts -- he didn't live to see the dream through. He set a high, high standard for Americans, one that continues to be kept out of reach for many by a debilitating combination of hate and ignorance. We look to his words for reassurance and empowerment, as a kind of owner's manual for this strange and diverse place we call both America and home. It can seem as if his words fail us -- when racial profiling, commercial redlining, injustice, crime and poverty deepen the nation's dividing lines of color -- but the failure is often our own, born of greed, pride, fear, distrust or simple laziness.
We can only imagine what, at age 73, the Rev. King would have made of the violence that left a permanent gash in our nation on Sept. 11, and of the religious extremism that inspired it. As the cultural suspicions that have since riven our country have illustrated yet again, we sorely need the Rev. King's counsel. Perhaps we always will.
(Compiled by United Press International.)
