As you know, Monday was Martin Luther King day. I want to share a powerful message with you from Dr. King, with introduction comments from Henry Ho, co-founder of NorthStar Partnering Group. It is worth the read and should motivate marketplace leaders to fight for our communities.
Henry Ho:
“This is powerful stuff that should stir our souls. While we have made great progress with racial equality since 1963 when this letter was written, it is important to note that we are not there yet. There is more work to be done. There are still many other areas of injustice in our communities and in the world that need our involvement as individuals and as a company. I think this may be something that you would want to share with your spouse/friends. If you have children, you may want to share these excerpts with them each year during MLK day and talk about it. This would be like reading the Christmas story.”
Excerpt from Dr. King’s letter:
I cannot sit idly in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was “well timed” in view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another mans freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro the wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating that absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
