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  1. letterfromjail.com38 min
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    letterfromjail.com
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    • ctwardy2 years ago

      I need to read this more often.

    • DellwoodBarker2 years ago

      🪶Essential🪶

      MLK is such a profound voice that resonates Every Word as powerfully relevant Today as it was back then. Who would’ve imagined we would Need such Clarity Expressed after All these years gone by?!?

      This also proves how powerful the pen is. When we are Passionate and Love So Deeply on an individual, theme, belief, etc we have to release the caged animals for Our Own Freedom and the much Larger Picture as well.

      MLK is a saint, human, Angel, Icon.

      Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

      So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

      AOTD. Pleeeeaaaase.

      1. Update (4/28/2021):

        Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

      • Darko2 years ago

        "MLK is such a profound voice that resonates Every Word as powerfully relevant Today as it was back then."

        Yes

    • DellwoodBarker2 years ago

      Companion article that still deserves AOTD, also:

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/nyregion/martin-luther-king-stabbed-harlem.html

      🆙 Oops, that is the external link. Meant to link to the Imported RU version 🤷🏽‍♀️

      Still learning

    • jeff2 years ago

      An incredibly powerful and timeless read. I found the paragraph where he talks about having to explain racism and segregation to his children especially moving.