Last Monday was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day and I both observed and participated in a local march in downtown Santa Cruz, California. Demonstrators were diverse in age, gender, color, and nationality; as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have wanted. Participants walked bearing a range of signs representative of their purpose and intentions for their presence from large banners of organizations to simple hand written Martin Luther King quotes on cardboard.
One of these simple signs truly caught my eye and it bore the quote: “I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear. -MLK”.
It wasn’t a quote I was familiar with, so when I had the chance I decided to look up the quote to learn about the source and circumstances. Turns out it was from a speech Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave titled “Where Do We Go From Here?” delivered August 16th, 1967 at the 11th Annual Southern Christian Leadership Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. The speech’s title echoed the messages and title of his recent book released almost two months earlier in June of 1967: “Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community?”.
And King gave the speech just a little over two weeks after the 1967 Detroit Riots that lasted from July 23rd to July 27th considered “…among the most violent and destructive riots in U.S. history. By the time the bloodshed, burning and looting ended after five days, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned and some 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops had been called into service.” [source: http://www.history.com/topics/1967-detroit-riots]
King was truly re-answering his own question “Where Do We Go From Here?”
King’s answer to this was that people, people of color in particular, needed to assert their dignity and self-worth, develop their values, and organize their strength into legitimate power:
“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. says in this same “Where Do We Go From Here?” speech.
But this brings us now to another question King answers in this speech, “What is the only answer to all of our problems?”
And the answer to this comes from the larger textual context of the cardboard sign quote we began with, “I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Yes, there is a slight misquote as it should have been “stick with love” not “stick to love” but let me show you what else King said:
I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate, myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love.
So King’s answer? Love.
Thank you Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And thank you to the family who carried their homemade sign reminding us all of the authentic value Dr. King stood for and that we absolutely need to remember right now in our times just as much as his.
Whether you stick to it or with it…
LOVE
Ethical Living 