Feature
By Bill Federer, American Minute
In 1983, Republican President Ronald Reagan signed the bill to make the third Monday in January a holiday in honor of Baptist Pastor, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who was born January 15, 1929.
Martin was a Baptist preacher like his father, Reverend “Daddy” King – Martin Luther, Sr., who was pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and his brother, Reverend A.D. King, who was pastor of Mount Vernon First Baptist Church in Newnan, Georgia.
Martin Luther King, Jr., attended Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, 1942-44.
In 1944, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, a college founded after the Civil War by Reverend William Jefferson White, who had also organized Harmony Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia.
Originally named Atlanta Baptist College, it was renamed after Henry Lyman Morehouse, secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.
At Morehouse, King was a member of the debate team, student council, glee club, sociology club, and minister’s union.
In 1948, King, Jr., became a student at Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania, graduating with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. While a theology student, King attended Calvary Baptist Church in Chester, Pennsylvania.
In 1954, King became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
In 1960, he became co-pastor with his father of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Reverend King, Jr., stated:
“I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world … as a marvelous example of what can be done … how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.”
“Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.”
“I solemnly pledge to do my utmost to uphold the fair name of the Jews.”
In 1964, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Prize in Olso, Norway, declaring in his acceptance speech: “… profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time — the need for man to overcome oppression and violence WITHOUT resorting to violence and oppression.”
King’s views are at odds with modern agitating groups that riot, smash windows, set stores on fire, burn cars, and attack innocent bystanders.
On April 16, 1963, Reverend King, wrote:
“As the Apostle Paul carried the gospel of Jesus Christ … so am I compelled to carry the gospel …
One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage.”
King, as well as South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, were influenced by the German church leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who resisted Hitler’s National Socialist Workers’ Party.
Bonhoeffer was himself influenced by the Black preacher, Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, once the largest Protestant church in America.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was also influenced by Henry David Thoreau, who wrote in his book, In Civil Disobedience, 1849: “That government is best which governs least.”
King was influenced by Booker T. Washington, having attended the high school named for him.
Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, writing in Up From Slavery, 1901:
“It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
With God’s help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race. I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a member of my own race.
I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.”
He wrote in The Story of My Life and Work, 1901:
“I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race.”
On July 28, 1868, Washington wrote to Major T.C. Marshall, editor of The Salvation Army’s Conqueror Magazine:
“I am very glad to hear that The Salvation Army is going to undertake work among my people in the southern states. I have always had the greatest respect for the work of The Salvation Army especially because I have noted that it draws no color line in religion …
God bless you in all your unselfish Christian work for our country.”
Washington expressed:
“In the sight of God there is no color line, and we want to cultivate a spirit that will make us forget that there is such a line anyway.”
Washington wrote in Up From Slavery, 1901:
“Great men cultivate love … only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.”
Booker T. Washington spoke on the topic of Abraham Lincoln to the Republican Club of New York City, February 12, 1909:
“One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with them.”
He wrote in Sowing and Reaping, 1900:
“Success or failure depends very largely upon the side of life we choose … If a person chooses the higher side of life … he will succeed; but, on the other hand, if he chooses the lower side of life he will fail. “The way of the transgressor is hard” …
Instead of picking flaws in the character, and making unjust and uncalled for criticisms upon our neighbors … we should encourage them in order that they may improve …
One of the greatest temptations young people have, who live on the lower side of life, is to engage in profane, vulgar, and boisterous conversation …
The influence of unhealthy conversation is so great that nothing can counteract the harm it does a person’s character.”
Booker T. Washington wrote in Up From Slavery, 1901:
“There is a class of race problem solvers who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public …
Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances because they do not want to lose their jobs …
They don’t want the patient to get well.”
Frederick Douglass was another successful leader who forgave Democrat slaveholders, as he recounted in the story of his conversion:
“My religious nature was awakened by the preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God; that they were, by nature, rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God, through Christ …
I finally found that change of heart which comes by “casting all one’s care” upon God, and by having faith in Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer, Friend, and Savior of those who diligently seek him …
I gathered scattered pages of the Bible from the filthy street gutters, and washed and dried them, that … I might get a word or two of wisdom from them … After this, I saw the world in a new light … I loved all mankind – slaveholders not excepted; though I abhorred slavery more than ever.”
Read the full article here: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and those who inspired non-violent resis – AmericanMinute.com-William J. Federer
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florid
