It’s about moral leadership
That’s why Martin Luther King, Jr. endures as an American icon. And, I believe we can extrapolate from his words of 40-50 years ago to sort out where he might be guiding us today. While the movement for equal rights did not include gay rights in 1968, if alive today, I have no doubt that Dr. King would be firmly on the side of universal equality, regardless of sexual orientation.
I came across this video on YouTube.com, posted just yesterday. The producer is a partisan organization. You can ignore the written overlay from the producer and just listen to the words of Dr. King. I think he’d be saying exactly the same thing today…about our current wars.
President and Mrs. Obama are urging Americans to use this day to engage in some act of community service. Across the country, there are events planned to commemorate the birth of one of this country’s greatest moral leaders. Here’s some information about an event tomorrow in Vermont:
SOUTH ROYALTON, VT –– Robert Mack Bell, the first African-American to serve as chief judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, will be the keynote speaker Tuesday, Jan. 18 at Vermont Law School’s observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The event is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided at 12:15 p.m. and the talk will start at 1 p.m. in the Chase Community Center,
Bell has been a civil rights activist since 1960 when he and several other students participated in a sit-in protest and refused to leave a segregated restaurant in his hometown of Baltimore. The students were convicted of trespassing in a case that was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1964 case of Bell v. Maryland, the Court remanded the case to the state Court of Appeals, which cleared the students of all charges in 1965.
Bell, who received his JD degree from Harvard Law School, has been a judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals since 1991 and its chief judge since 1996.
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Last August, in another All In post, I included a video of the “I Have a Dream” speech. If you’d like to listen to that, go here.
Tags: Jr., Martin Luther King
