Martin Luther King and the Law of the Land

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been 81 on Jan. 15, 2010. Unfortunately his birthday has been turned into a three-day weekend by being recognized as a federal holiday observed on the third Monday of January each year. He deserves better. No person has has as much lasting impact on this long ago adolescent who was living in a 99.9% white suburban town outside of Chicago in the early 1960s as MLK did and still does.

As noted below, King remains the moral leader of our country. I imagine he would be happy to see Obama in the White House but would be pushing him for more reforms, each and every day, until equality truly existed in this country. He would be calling for the destruction of Bush's Wall, and demanding equitable treatment of all people living in the US regardless of nationality, sexual orientation, color, economic status, physical or mental disability or legal status as defined by ICE... He would be insisting that hunger in America is a crime committed by our government, that heath care is a human right, that war crime charges against the US government be prosecuted to the fullest extent of international law including those international conventions the US conveniently does not recognition under an all too human notion of national sovereignty.

Dr. King would be preaching that Justice with a capital "J" can be realized in the American legal system. And, if alive today, we would still be listening to him after 55 years on the national stage because his words would not be defined by the intellectually bankrupt dogma of political correctness. So once again, LLB republishes the below. First appearing in on Jan. 15, 2007, it has been republished every Martin Luther King, Jr. Day since because I can think of no better tribute. [JH]

"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. " -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.

Still the "moral leader of our country."

"I Have a Dream" delivered August 28 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

"I've Been to the Mountaintop" delivered April 3, 1968 (prophetic last speech delivered the day before Dr. King was murdered).