Month: January 2018

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?
Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest………………..

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Published in:
King, Martin Luther Jr.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
– 1 Corinthians 15:57 –
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In the game of life we are heavy favorites with a guaranteed victory. However, the opposition (enemy) will still try every trick and scheme to gain the advantage and rip imminent victory from within or grasps. He will do everything within his power to establish a foothold and strip us of the victory we were promised in Christ Jesus.
Although we are highly favored we and all but assured victory we rest on our laurels and forget that we still must play the game of life. In order to win we must have a game plan, a strategy if you will of how to achieve victory. This is what God has provided us through His Word. (The Playbook for Life)
He instructs us to suit up with His whole armor and grind it out day by day fighting the good fight of faith. As my pastor would say, “We’ve got to walk our Faith out, left foot, right foot under any and conditions in hostile territory as we are not of this world, but in it.
We must execute His game plan to achieve our desired goal which is to spend eternity in His presence. Although it is not by works alone that we are saved we are still required to do our part and walk in obedience to that which God desires of us. Just like a football team doesn’t succeed unless every person does their job, as followers of Christ we all have a part to play and faith without works is dead being alone.
The enemy has a playbook as well and he walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He studies us to determine our weaknesses and tendencies in an effort to defeat us. He lurks and waits for the opportune time to exploit us and expose our flaws to the world. In the end leaving us confused and befuddled on just how we let an inferior opponent get the best of us and strip us of a victory that was guaranteed.
And the answer to this all probing question is really quite simple. If you let a defeated foe stick around long enough it build the confidence and belief that you can be defeated. The Bible says to lay aside every weight that so easily besets to avoid falling into the snares of sin. However, we pick and choose those habits and actions we want to hand over to God. We flirt with sin and let it hang around the periphery knowing all too well that it doesn’t just want to hang around outside of the gate. It wants to come into center city (our hearts) and take control.
By not yielding total control to the Father we suffer many self-inflicted wounds that ultimately cause us to spiral downward and fumble that which He guaranteed us into the hands of a weaker yet opportunistic opponent. Failure to guard our hearts and execute God’s game plan as we’ve been instructed in His Word will leave us confused and full of regret in the end wondering how we let something that was so certain slip away.
“If the devil is in your ear he is too high. God has placed all things under your feet.”
-26 Beautiful One liners-

I know that I have the ability to achieve my definite purpose in life; therefore I demand of myself, persistent, continuous action towards its attainment and I here and now promise to render such action.
I fully realize that no wealth or position will long endure unless it is built upon truth and justice; therefore I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all to whom it effects.
I am succeeding by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of other people.
I induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others.
I eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, cynicism, anger, and fear by developing a true love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude towards others will never bring me success.
I cause others to believe in me because I believe in them and believe in myself.
This is my creed, my quest.
To never stop striving for the top.
To always keep moving forward.
To always be the very best I can be.
I am the power. I cannot be stopped. I am a winner. I promise to always be true to myself. I am responsible for making a positive difference in the world and to the quality of life in it.
I live in constant and never-ending improvement.

(by Napoleon Hill)