Today we celebrate the 90th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although Dr. King is most known for his nonviolent stance, let us not forget that he was a social justice warrior beaten and jailed for his resistance to discrimination and oppression and fight for equality and economic justice. On August 28, 1963, Dr, King delivered his iconic “I Have A Dream,” address at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. Dr. King had come to Memphis as part of his Poor People’s Campaign to organize a mass movement to demand that Congress shift its priorities from funding military buildup and war to funding jobs, housing, health care, and education. Additionally, he was in Memphis protesting the poor working conditions and low wages of striking city sanitation workers.
It is not lost on me that many Americans will commemorate this 2019 MLK Day of Service by feeding, encouraging, and donating to federal workers who are unfairly impacted by the longest government shutdown in American history. I do not believe this shutdown is about immigration or a border wall and it is appalling that hard-working Americans are being used as a political pawn. The impact is intense and wide-reaching – I will not be silent.
Dr. King’s words express the sentiment and caution that I hope we all will heed. THANK YOU to all who are paying it forward to family, friends, neighbors, and strangers.
- In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
- “We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
- “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
- “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”
- “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
- “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”
- “Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”
- “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
- “The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.”
- “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
- “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
- “Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
- “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”
- “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”
Nicki Sanders, MSW, is a travel and cupcake lover with a passion for self-discovery and career advancement. She has an extensive background in developing and managing interns and successful internship programs. She is an accomplished supervisor, professor, coach, trainer, and group facilitator who has merged her Master of Social Work degree and 20 years of diverse work experience into a thriving business. Nicki Sanders Consulting helps businesses increase employee recruitment and retention and helps managers uplevel their leadership skills.
© 2019 Copyright Protected. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED.