Geburtstag: 18. Januar 1929
Todesdatum: 4. April 1968
Martin Luther King jr. war ein US-amerikanischer Baptistenpastor und Bürgerrechtler. Er zählt zu den bedeutendsten Vertretern des Kampfes gegen soziale Unterdrückung und Rassismus.
Er war zwischen Mitte der 1950er und Mitte der 1960er Jahre der bekannteste Sprecher der US-amerikanischen Bürgerrechtsbewegung . In dieser Bewegung propagierte er den zivilen Ungehorsam als Mittel gegen die politische Praxis der Rassentrennung in den Südstaaten der USA und nahm selbst an entsprechenden Aktionen teil.
Wesentlich durch Kings Einsatz und Wirkkraft ist das Civil Rights Movement zu einer Massenbewegung geworden, die schließlich erreicht hat, dass die Rassentrennung gesetzlich aufgehoben und das uneingeschränkte Wahlrecht für die schwarze Bevölkerung der US-Südstaaten eingeführt wurde. Wegen seines Engagements für soziale Gerechtigkeit erhielt King 1964 den Friedensnobelpreis. Am 4. April 1968 wurde King bei einem Attentat ermordet.
— Martin Luther King
Die Kraft zum Lieben. Konstanz, 1964. Übersetzer: Hans-Georg Noack
— Martin Luther King, Herausgeber: Bahr, Hans-Eckehard Bahr und Grosse, Heinrich W. Düsseldorf, 2003. ISBN 3-491-45025-X
— Martin Luther King
Die Kraft zum Lieben. Konstanz, 1964. Übersetzer: Hans-Georg Noack
— Martin Luther King
Warum wir nicht warten können. Düsseldorf, 1967. Übersetzer: Hans Lamm
— Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.
"Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" (31 March 1968)
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speech to the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights – Chicago (25 March 1966), as quoted in Dan Munro, "America's Forgotten Civil Right - Healthcare" http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2013/08/28/americas-forgotten-civil-right-healthcare/, Forbes (28 August 2013). See also: Amanda Moore, "Tracking Down Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words on Health Care", Huffington Post (18 August 2013) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-moore/martin-luther-king-health-care_b_2506393.html
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
Context: A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be changed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
