"One of the great tragedies of life is that men rarely go beyond the abyss between the practice and the profession, between do and say. " -Martin Luther King Jr. One of the biggest lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. is that he went into action. He does not hide behind a pulpit. He has done something. - Caused by the position of Rosa Parks against the laws of Jim Crow, King led the boycott of the buses of Montgomery, 1955. About 90 leaders, including King, were indicted during the boycott, but they made it an act of defiance. "I was proud of my crime," said King. "It was the crime of joining my people in protest of a non-violent against injustice." - on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, soldiers of the state of Alabama attacked demonstrators of civil rights with bombs of tear gas, truncheons and horses of load, when they tried to cross the bridge Edmund Pettus. King was not present in that motion, but said: "If I had any idea that the state troops would use the type of brutality that they used, I would have felt obliged to give up my duties of the church to lead them." He was there, two days after leading a march ceremonial and again two weeks later, when the march was resumed with the protection of a judicial order.
In 1966, King and Ralph Abernathy moved to the suburbs of Chicago to demonstrate their support and empathy to those poor people. They marched against the segregation in housing policy and during a gait were received by a crowd mocking, throwing rocks, bottles and rockets. King was hit in the head by a stone, there were 30 wounded . His response: "I have to do this, i expose myself to expose this hatred". But acting is never easy. King was arrested 29 times. His house was bombed. His life was threatened several times, and he ended up being murdered.
Communicate a message is one thing, but support it with action is always necessary. We can not draw people to love others, while we sit and do nothing. The lesson of Martin Luther King Jr. is that he doesnt only speak about this message, but he has worked to achieve it. IT IS the example of his life that is the challenge he placed on the door of the Church:
"The Church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the State, but rather the conscience of the state. It should be the guide and the critic of the State, and never its tool. If the church doesnt recapture it's prophetic zeal, he will become a social club irrelevant without moral authority or spiritual. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and economic justice and racial, it will lose the loyalty of millions and lead men of all places to say that their will is gone. But if the church will be free of the shackles of a status quo mortal, and restoring its great historic mission, will speak and act without fear and with insistence, in terms of justice and peace, that will ignite the imagination of mankind and set fire to the souls of men, infusing them with a love bright and burning by truth, justice and peace. Men, from far and near they will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lone travellers midnight".
In his "Letter from the prison of Birmingham 'King expressed his disappointment with the moderate Christians who have condemned the violence that broke out outside the Movement for Civil Rights:
"All the many others have been more cautious than courageous and remained in silence behind the anaesthetic safety of stained glass".
That those may not be us.
http://sepaldigital.com.br
Translation:Nivea Cólon
