MLK day

From: David Preiss (david.preiss@yale.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 19 2004 - 14:40:02 PST


Hi XMCArs,

As MLK day finishes, I wanted to share with you three small quotations of him:

I said to my children, 'I'm going to work and do everything that I can do to see that you get a good education. I don't ever want you to forget that there are millions of God's children who will not and cannot get a good education, and I don't want you feeling that you are better than they are. For you will never be what you ought to be until they are what they ought to be.'
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. , 7th January, 1968

As June approaches, with its graduation ceremonies and speeches, a thought suggests itself...Whatever career you may choose for yourself--doctor, l awyer, teacher--let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man . Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. , 18th April, 1959

The reason I can't follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind. Somebody must have sense and somebody must have religion. I remember some years ago, my brother and I were driving from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee. And for some reason the drivers that night were very discourteous or they were forgetting to dim their lights...And finally A.D. looked over at me and he said, 'I'm tired of this now, and the next car that comes by here and refuses to dim the lights, I'm going to refuse to dim mine.' I said, 'Wait a minute, don't do that . Somebody has to have some sense on this highway.' And I'm saying the same thing for us here in Birmingham. We are moving up a mighty highway toward the city of Freedom. There will be meandering points. There will be curves and difficult moments, and we will be tempted to retaliate with the same kind of force that the opposition will use. But I'm going to say to you, 'Wait a minute, Birmingham. Somebody's got to have some sense in Birmingham.'
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. 3rd May, 1963

David D. Preiss
Yale University
Department of Psychology
2 Hillhouse Ave.
New Haven, CT
06520-8205
USA
___________________________
www.yale.edu/pace
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ddp6/
David D. Preiss
Yale University
Department of Psychology
2 Hillhouse Ave.
New Haven, CT
06520-8205
USA
___________________________
www.yale.edu/pace
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ddp6/



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