Like many of us, on Dr. King's birthday, I visited the Stanford web site where I could reread his writings and speeches. As an aspiring writer, I never plumb the depths of that genius's consummate skill.
This year I reread Dr. King's address, in A Call to Conscience, entitled "Beyond Vietnam."
I noticed again how his sentences so often ended on the upbeat. They so often painted pictures. They alluded to stories we know and love. They drew wisdom from scriptures, poets, philosophers, histories. They never stopped with facile slogans, but meticulously recounted buried histories, as in that speech we heard the real history of Vietnam. They went beyond history to practical politics, and beyond practical politics to core values.
"One the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
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