Dear Lily June,
Allow me to repeat myself. Day 1 explains a little more about this, but essentially for three days, I’m using the quotation challenge issued to me many months ago by pennyforyourthotsblog (hi, Penny! And thanks again, one final time!) to share words on race and racism in America which haunt and inspire and provoke and enlighten in equal measures. I will spend the next three days posting the words of people of color, but on Monday, I will not post anything, in order to create a moment of silence for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Today’s quotation comes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself. I know it’s a cliché to pull from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” but as a seminal American civil rights text, it has earned its place in cliché. And I find myself needing to return to it often, if only to remind myself of the dangers of becoming just another of the white moderates King criticizes for their passive acceptance of, rather than active engagement with, the civil rights movement. It is an admonishment I accept and will use to spur myself towards a more action-oriented 2017 devoted to the service of others.
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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country.”
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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For this challenge, I nominate Gallimaufry, The Shameful Narcissist Speaks, and Nuggets of Gold to post three consecutive days worth of quotations, but I add the additional option: That if you wish, you should attempt to post and promote the words of someone who does not share your race, ethnicity, skin color, religion, gender, sex, and/or sexual orientation.
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Picture Credits:
- By Trikosko, Marion S. – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsc.01269. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32456
dearlilyjune 
Thank you for thinking of me with this nomination! I will try to come up with something and someone relevant for these tense times, and also thank you for recognizing that Dr. King has unfortunately been whitewashed and bastardized, his revolutionary and rebellious words cherry-picked and picked over to become more palatable. The sad truth is even I didn’t realize this until my early thirties, that he was diminished to become more acceptable, compared with the seemingly more radical Malcolm X.
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