Where do we go from here?
The following quotes are from Martin Luther King’s book Where do we go from here? It contains his honest assessment of where the world was in the late 1960s and what it would take to get things on the right track. It is a book that cannot be reduced to sound bites and must be read cover to cover to be appreciated. But, until you have the time do that, let these quotes challenge you.
Concerning worldwide brotherhood:
One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live together as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.
Concerning the image of God:
Deeply woven into the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God, and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value. If we accept this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with ill-health, when we have the means to help them. In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied together. They entered the same mysterious gateway of human birth, into the same adventure of life.