From Information Clearing House
By Mark A. Goldman

In honor of Martin Luther King I am not going to speak directly about his dream or his sacrifice.

His contribution and the contribution of all who helped make him what he was—which is to say, all those who marched, boycotted, broke the rules, sat at lunch counters and on buses, got dog bit, hand cuffed, fire hosed, jailed and billy clubbed so that he might have a platform on which to speak—cannot be properly honored with fancy words or platitudes.

I will not offer praise either… for the same reason that I sometimes feel slightly unsettled when I hear people say, “Praise the Lord,” as if praise is really what God was hoping for.

The movement that provided King the platform from which he so eloquently spoke, made great strides under his leadership, and did so in the face of terrible odds. One of King’s most important victories was having both the consciousness to recognize and the courage to then proclaim, that all people—not only Americans—are entitled to basic human rights, compassion, and respect. Today, remembering King, we are grateful for what he, and those who marched shoulder to shoulder with him, stood for… and what they stood against.

But alas, history reminds us that the fruits of victory which are won even with enormous sacrifice—which is how our freedoms were won—are not guaranteed to last forever. The will to dominate, and other aspects of human depravity, somehow show up time and again just like hunger, poverty, and injustice do even in the midst of plenty and in the face of what we call progress.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when a woman asked Ben Franklin what kind of government had just been created, he replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.” That republic was only the skeleton of an idea—a promise— that Franklin knew could only be fulfilled and then periodically renewed by future generations.

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