Remembering Dr Martin Luther King Jr

I am old enough to remember that fateful day when Martin Luther King Jr was shot down in Memphis Tennessee, 50 years ago yesterday.

I listened to Dr Cornel West, Professor of Philosophy at the Harvard Divinity School, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, describe Dr King as a love extremist.

I thought it was important enough to listen again and transcribe Dr West’s exact words. Here they are.

As you read them, think about how fortunate many of us are to live in nations like Canada (so few, so few of them!) where people of all races, creeds, colors, religions, genders, sexual orientation get along and respect one another…

“Yeah, I think we are reaching the conclusion that Martin Luther King Jr was an extremist when it came to love. Extremist when it came to justice. And what that meant was that he was willing to tell the truth—the condition of truth is always to allow suffering to speak. He come from a people who’ve been terrorized, traumatized and hated for four hundred years. Who taught the world so much about love and connected it to justice with an unbelievable level of courage and vision, but it’s a sad day, it’s a very tough day, it’s a solemn day, it’s a sober day because something died in all of us who are concerned about each other. When you think about brother Martin shot down like a dog there outside of room 306 in Lorraine hotel in Memphis. The important thing brother Anderson was that Martin Luther King Jr, he loved you, he loved me, he loved Muslims, Mexicans, he loved Palestinians and Jews, he loved Dalit and Roma—he was a love warrior. He was an intellectual and spiritual love warrior,” Dr Cornel West, interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN on the 50^th anniversary of Dr King’s death, April 4, 2018

Prof Bruce