The Question: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago. What are your memories of that day? What impact did it have on you? How is King relevant to you and to us today?
I met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on a February day in 1968, when, as a seminary student, I took a long bus ride to Washington D.C. to hear him speak at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church about the connection between the cost of the war in Vietnam and its devastating impact on the poor.
His courageous words that day -- earnest, unafraid, challenging America’s moral failings without judgment or alienation -- changed my life. He inspired my political activism that came to include serving in Congress for 12 years, and now serving as the president of Common Cause.
Forty years after his death, Dr. King’s words are just as relevant for our nation, if not more so. His prophetic calls for social and economic justice and the rule of law for all, not just some, must still be answered.
Dr King reminds us daily that ‘we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.’
I pray that GOOD PEOPLE will never be silent again.
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