Community of St. Bridget
  • Home
  • About
  • Homilies
    • Mary Eileen Collingwood
  • Links

Martin Luther King Jr.

1/16/2017

 
From Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story by Martin Luther King Jr. (1958)
Picture
Something began to say to me, "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." When oppressed people willingly accept their oppression they only serve to give the oppressor a convenient justification for his acts. Often the oppressor goes along unaware of the evil involved in his oppression so long as the oppressed accepts it. So in order to be true to one's conscience and to God, a righteous man has no alternative but to refuse to cooperate with an evil system.  This I felt was the nature of our action. From this moment on I conceived of our movement as an act of massive non-cooperation. 
This passage was written in 1958.  Today, King's biased choice of pronouns seems very dated to our ears. He was in fact unaware that his choice of words were reflective of a massive system of oppression which pushed women to the margins.  A modern day King, writing this paragraph in 2017, would not have made the same mistake.  Even so, King's words are timeless in their underlying meaning.  Often systems of oppression are so pervasive that oppressors are not even aware of the harm they do. Often victims of opression are complicit with their own oppression.  We are all called to "massive non-cooperation" with evil systems.
Photo credit: Dick DeMarsico, World Telegram staff photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Comments are closed.


    Categories

    All
    Call Stories
    Ordinations
    Press Releases
    Take Action

    Archives

    February 2020
    September 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    Picture
Photos used under Creative Commons from torbakhopper, Muffet, OliBac, comedy_nose, edenpictures, RAYANDBEE, Edsel L, blacklord
  • Home
  • About
  • Homilies
    • Mary Eileen Collingwood
  • Links