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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day    

16 January 2023

Equality is the first word that usually comes to mind when thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr., who the nation pauses to honor today. Equal rights, in short. Regardless of race. A revolutionary idea in its day.

Atlanta, Ga. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthplace shines at night on Jan. 20, 2013, seen from the International Space Station 240 miles above the city.

But that concept was the frosting on the cake. The cake itself was his devotion to justice.

Justice. What a concept.

In our day it's a revolutionary concept. We watch impatiently as white collar criminals wring this country's neck and pluck its finest feathers for their pillows. And toss talk of hoaxes and witch hunts and justice around in a shower of placeboes.

'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.'

• Letter from Birmingham, Alabama jail, April 16, 1963

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s love of justice inspired his eloquence in arguing for equality. And it was that same love of justice that later inspired his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

That, too, was not a popular position in his time.

It's hard to imagine the status quo then was so heavily invested in inequality and injustice. But we were there then. That's how it worked.

And how it still works today.

So we chose this quote of King's from jail to celebrate this holiday.

We may struggle to adequately define fairness but everyone knows when something is unfair. We can't easily describe justice but we know injustice when we see it.

So it is particularly noteworthy that the civilized world has banded together to defend Ukraine. The injustice visited on that country is an injustice visited on civilization.

We can just imagine what Martin Luther King, Jr. might have said about the Russian invasion. We suspect he would have warned about those among us who would now walk back from our commitment to Ukraine's defense.

As if the injustice visited on that country did not affect us all.

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