Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, January 11, 2026
for Martin Luther King, Jr Day, Celebrated January 19, 2026
Morning Y’all! Today I want to share reflections on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr whose life we celebrate annually in January, on the third Monday, near his birthday, January 15th. This year we will celebrate on January 19th. The title of his last book, published in 1967, offered me a title for my message: Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? But before I begin, here are some interesting facts about him:
- He is the only non-president honored by a federal holiday
- The first holiday was celebrated in 1986, but all 50 states had made it a holiday by 2020
- The monument to his life was completed in 2011, erected near the national mall in DC
- Chicagoans also built a Living Memorial to MLK, Jr to honor the work he did with citizens to address housing discrimination in Illinois; the 2016 opening marked the 50th anniversary of the march through Marquette Park.
It is clear that we live in a chaotic world, yet is it more chaotic than earlier times? Do we have any less of a challenge today as people who profess to follow Christ as the people who were in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s? I will share some stories from my youth in the 60s, as well as a few quotes from Dr. King’s Nobel Prize Lecture (December 11,1964) demonstrating how turbulent times assail us, regardless of the era, implying our work is ongoing and the struggle for peace cannot be abandoned:
“This evening, I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man’s scientific and technological progress…
Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
This is the serious predicament, the deep and haunting problem confronting modern man. If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual “lag” must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul.
This problem of spiritual and moral lag, which constitutes modern man’s chief dilemma, expresses itself in three larger problems which grow out of man’s ethical infantilism. Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war.”
- A couple of stories from my growing up reflect the challenges faced by African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. My family is from the country, y’all, I mean farming country where some towns have just a gas station and a general store! Poverty was the norm, for Blacks and Whites, yet Whites believed they were better because of the color of their skin. My parents were always addressing issues of civil rights and on top of that, they were very religious and were determined to address unfairness and injustice with anyone! They were involved with voter rights, integrating schools, and related issues with the NAACP. MLK’s fight for civil rights ultimately addressed the poverty and unfairness for the many people who still suffer today—immigrants, females, gay people, the disabled who are the most discriminated people in the country, maybe the world. Here is a story my Dad told us long after it happened because he thought we were too young to understand it all when it occurred. My father finished dental school with the help of the Army, and practiced dentistry in Vicksburg, MS, where he had a deferment signed each year as he worked off time and payments he owed the service for his education; the Mississippi Medical Director signed his deferment each year. After the Brown vs Board of Education case was declared unconstitutional in 1954, the medical director called for a meeting of all medical personnel—Black & White, to discuss the decision. My Dad was the only Black doctor to speak us, feeling relieved that we no longer had to go to dilapidated buildings, with outdated books for our education. The medical director decided that he would no longer honor the deferment, and forced Dad to choose a branch of the service to finish paying for his education. Ironically it was like throwing “Brer Rabbit” into the briar patch because we experienced more advantages going back into the service since the military gave officers housing, medical care, and other amenities that my parents could not afford in the segregated community where we lived!
- Our whole family helped to desegregate the beaches in Biloxi, MS through planned sit-ins with the local NAACP. Mississippi beaches were closed off from Blacks except for certain small sections. We agreed to “wade in” the white sections with several other families, and fortunately things went well. Some of you know that sit-ins, boycotts and other non-violent means to resistance was not easy though folks were trained to behave in ways consistent with non-violent philosophy: people were hurt, lost employment, set upon by dogs, died for the cause.
- My older sister went to college at Tuskegee Institute and decided to join the marches protesting discrimination, fell ill under the pressures of studying and marching, and had to come home for a while to recover.
King’s Nobel Lecture continues:
“What the main sections of the civil rights movement in the United States are saying is that the demand for dignity, equality, jobs, and citizenship will not be abandoned or diluted or postponed. If that means resistance and conflict we shall not flinch. We shall not be cowed. We are no longer afraid.” (Mahatma Gandi’s non-violent campaign against the British was quite convincing to King who adopted this strategy for the Civil Rights Movement).
In a real sense nonviolence seeks to redeem the spiritual and moral lag that I spoke of earlier as the chief dilemma of modern man. It seeks to secure moral ends through moral means. Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.
The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade. We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it.”
I do not believe we are living in the worst of times, though life is troubling in every sphere we can imagine, environmentally, socially, spiritually. Yet, I do believe we have the power to sustain ourselves and overcome much of the evil we are experiencing. The organizing power of love can help transform our lives and those we love, by taking right, non-violent actions. (We have plenty of evidence of that today, even in our Meeting) We must remember that our troubled times did not arrive with our current national government, they just seem more devastating because it is our own elected government is orchestrating so much of the chaos!
King expresses the strength of his convictions about love: We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. In this 1967 book, he offered another quote many use to express the relationship between power of love.
…Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love.
What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. (Chaos or Community, p.37)
Aligned with MLK, Jr, ideas, Brian McLaren, faculty of the Center of Action & Contemplation, co-founded by Father Richard Rhor, encourages us to heed the call to action in non-violent, creative ways, through Christ-like action. McLaren, like King, invites us into a life rooted in contemplation, and in contemplation that always expresses itself in action. And that our actions lead to outcomes that show that the Power of love outlasts and overcomes the love of Power.
I leave you with the hope found in an excerpt from Amanda Gorham’s poem,The Hill We Climb, from Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration:
…We will not march back to what was,
But move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised, but whole,
Benevolent, but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation,
Because we know our inaction and inertia
Will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain,
If we merge mercy with might
And might with right,
Then Love becomes our legacy,
And change our children’s birthright.
So, let us leave behind a country
better than one we were left. “
Gorham, A. (2021). The Hill We Climb. Inaugural poem read on January 20, 2021.
King, M.L.K., Jr. (1967). Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Harper & Row.
MLK, Jr.’s Nobel Prize Lecture. Oslo, Norway. December 11, 1964.
www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/lecture
McLaren, B. Good News for a Fractured World, January 8, 2026 video. https://www.cac.org
