Com Hosted MarijuanaNews. Com Supported MarijuanaNews. It is Martin Luther King's birthday, and I am reminded again and again of the terrible contradiction between American principles and American policies. Dr. King called on America, not to change its ideals, but to live by them. His great gift to us was to inspire us to do this non-violently.
Freedom is the American blessing, but violence is our curse.
Slavery was a form of state violence that denied freedom to Africans. The founders knew that slavery was wrong, but truly did not know what to do about it. They did not excuse themselves from responsibility for it. But the end of slavery was not the end of injustice for African Americans. The greatness of Dr. King let us escape from much of the consequence of the injustice of racism without another civil war, the sort that we tasted after his assassination.