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King’s lesson applies to all races today

Published 12:04am Tuesday, January 22, 2013

One day after the nation paused to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it’s easy for white people to simply dismiss the holiday as one that is only important for Americans with black skin.

Doing so would prove the lack of understanding of what Dr. King’s civil rights mission encompassed.

For those who have read Dr. King’s writings, such a belittling assumption that his work was only focused on blacks would be unconscionable.

It would be akin to dismissing Christmas as merely the birthday of a Middle Eastern baby from 2,000 years ago, or perhaps dismissing the Fourth of July as a holiday to cook hotdogs and explode fireworks.

Sure the initial focus of King’s mission was one of securing full civil rights for black Americans. He was cut down by an assassin’s bullet before he could ever see significant progress on that dream.

But we have to think that had King lived, his mission would have continued to move and change. We see the roots of the man’s soul in now-famous lines of prose he penned.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he wrote in “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” in 1963.

Despite great strides in equality in the United States, great injustice still exists in America and the world.

To truly carry on King’s legacy, our focus on his lessons should be less about skin color and more about an underlying tenet of King’s heart, found in the Holy Bible: Love thy neighbor as thyself.

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  • http://www.natchezdemocrat.com khakirat

    DEB you are out of line on this issue when you didn’t acknowledge my hero on the front headline of the ND being its Robert E. Lees’ birthday and I feel discriminated on after mentioned in your comments last year!! We all have our freedom to feel as we do and not to be forced upon and I acknowledge the blacks have their hero M.L. King and thats their right but don’t force it on others as you did!! Your should have put both on the Front page the way I see it to be fair to all people in the Miss-Lou!!

  • Anonymous

    ” ONE-OF-THE-RING-LEADER-OF-JIM-CROW ” *ALWAYS* TRYING SO HARD TO KEEP IT ALIVE. YOU SHOULD BE GETTING A FILLING THAT YOU ARE IN IT ALL ALONE. YOU’LL SOON GET TIRED OF ANSWERING YOURSELF.

  • http://www.natchezdemocrat.com khakirat

    Only in your dreams!!

  • Anonymous

    I didn’t see any parade for Robert E. Lee’s birthday. In fact, Robert E. Lee’s birthday is not a legal holiday, khakirat. Martin Luther King Day is a legal holiday. So, go ahead and do what you want but don’t expect any news coverage of it.

  • http://www.natchezdemocrat.com khakirat

    Southern whites don’t have to always have parades to get our point of interest out as the blacks do but we do honor our own in respect and referents whether its national or state!! I didn’t know you were in charge of the news media as far a coverage!! You must have been a 30 day wonder working for AT&T or bellsouth with such wit huh’??!!

  • Anonymous

    Those statements are too stupid to comment. You don’t have to be black to celebrate MLK Day. Do you have something against MLK? What is your problem? Hateful, much?

  • http://www.natchezdemocrat.com khakirat

    I hate no one but you have to earn my respect for I’m christian and over 65 years old and to this day but I don’t care to be forced toward any thinking without taking inventory!! I feel these as you call it statements is a reflection on you not me!!

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