In Memory of Dr. King

[abbedd]

assassinated April 4, 1968


http://www.mediafire.com/?zz9zllnnlxg


Beethoven
Sym # 3-Marcia Funebre
Arturo Toscanini
NBC Symphony
1939 Live Studio 8-H

Robert Bloom Oboe
John Wummer Flute
Augustin Duques Clarinet
William Polisi Fagott
The Berv Bros Horns
Bernard Baker Trumpet

Abbedd

[saintsday]

May he some day rest in peace when his visions are finally fully realized.

[mhoyoux]

In November, 1962, Martin Luther King was arrested and sent to prison for demonstrating against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. While King was in prison he was criticised by a group of clergymen from Alabama who described him as a political extremist. King wrote a letter to the clergymen explaining his actions.

"I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist? An extremist for love, truth and goodness.

There are two types of laws: just and unjust. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal". 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.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over his injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire."