In class one of my professors, Dr. Tuell, shared with us a few of his favorite Martin Luther King Jr. quotes, and it got me thinking which one would I consider my favorite. Though admittedly the reservoir of King’s speeches in my brain is fairly limited, the portion I am going to share is from a lesser known speech of his titled “Where Do We Go From Here?” that he delivered August 16, 1967, in Atlanta, Ga., at the 11 Annual SCLC Convention. It’s a rather long speech, long but breathtaking, and the quote that has stuck with me has been this:
“And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”
It seems relatively simple enough – love is the answer. But I think what makes this stick out is not the choosing of love, but its reflection on the reality of what the world looks like. Problems abound. Listing them all would take up most of the space I have for this post, however the focus is not on the problems themselves. Yes, the problems are not to be ignored at all, yet to me it seems the focus leans toward the source of the problems themselves.
Us. We. You. Me. All of us. All of humankind.
The response could be, well, humankind’s nature is to be a broken, fallen people, so of course our product is going to be an equally broken world.
But what if, just what if, humankind is broken because we choose to be broken? What if we are broken because we don’t choose to love?
Now the love King talks about in this speech is a powerful, strong, demanding kind 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, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”
He doesn’t say it’s easy. No, I think he completely understands how hard it is to choose responses in love over responses of hate, but he sees that it goes against logic to pick anything else but the right answer, yet answers don’t pick themselves (if they did, tests would be a whole lot easier).
And I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve seen enough hate.
For full speech, follow this link.
Rebecca Dix, MDiv Student