The progress Martin Luther King Jr. made transforming society in his tragically short life amazes me. He worked to overcome inequality of rights where the color of a person’s skin might determine where they could sit on a bus, if they could eat at a certain restaurant, what school they could go to, and in some places whether they could vote.

When I taught religious analysis, I had students read part of Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, one of the most impressive arguments for equality ever made. This is my favorite part:

“How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. . . . Any law that uplifts human personality is just. 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 think his most impressive words come from the I have a Dream speech given in Washington, D.C. Aug. 28, 1963.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

Pray and work that the dream may come true.

Read Micah 6:8 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne