Music

Welcome to the Words Matter Library.

As we remember the legacy of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.,

we would like to direct our listeners to listen to the words of the brilliant,

the late great Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. himself on Audible.

First, we will start with the seminal letter from Birmingham Jail,

and Martin Luther King wrote this when he was put in jail in Alabama for protesting

during the Civil Rights Movement, and there were religious leaders who told him

to maybe take it down a notch, and he addressed their impatience with his impatience

in this beautiful, important letter.

And let's take a few of the most important passages of that just to dissect a bit.

I want to start with how Martin Luther King addresses the legality of Jim Crower laws

and how the similarities with Hitler's Germany, quote,

we can never forget everything Hitler did in Germany was legal,

and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters didn't hungry was, quote, illegal.

That's an important distinction these days, especially as Donald Trump seeks to cloak his policy

of what he is doing on the border, detaining children, detaining families, denying asylum, under the legal code.

Of course, that is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience.

It was evident sublimely, and the refusal of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego

to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake.

It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face Hungry Lions

and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire

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