MLK Day

C. Scott Vanderhoef, Rockland County Manager, was the guest of honor and recipient of Nyack College’s 2008 Social Justice Day award last Friday. He was being recognized for his long career of caring efforts for the needs of people of all classes and communities in Rockland County. Given the center seat at the head table, tall and with a strong aura of presence, featured guest, Scott was still humbled and overshadowed by a substitute keynote speaker and the presentation of a token of Rockland County history.

When he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was a member of the National Council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Long-time FOR member Pamela Blockey-O'Brien told me that during a phone conversation last week. After her call I was inspired to revisit King's essay, "My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," printed in Peace is the Way, the Fellowship magazine anthology edited by Walter Wink.

When I was minoring in African American Studies in college, I learned about civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. We were told that he was a close confidante, adviser, and assistant to Dr. King. Rustin was a dedicated and effective organizer, and some accounts even informed us that he was gay and had a history of association with the Communist Party.

What I never knew - until recently - was that he was also the Race Relations Secretary of FOR (from 1945 until he was unfortunately fired when his sexuality was publicly exposed in 1953). And I also didn't understand how important FOR was to informing King's strategies on nonviolent resistance. Here Rustin tell his story:

In August of 1945 I left Lewisburg Penitentiary, where I had been in jail as a conscientious objector. I had gone in to prison in 1942 for three years' term. Given good time, I was able to come out in August of 1945, at which time I went back to work for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, with which I had been associated since 1941. At this time I also was beginning to give a great deal of my time as director of the Civil Rights Department of the Fellowship of Reconciliation — FOR — to CORE [Committee on Racial Equality].

This MLK day has been one of discovery for me.  One of the informational places I have stumbled across is FOR's own web site!  We have a section of Martin Luther King resources including photos, scripture references, and links to more information.  It's a bit dated, but still very interesting.

Every time I come across these principles, it's like I'm seeing them again for the first time. I hope you also find them as revelatory and as inspirational as I do:

King’s notion of nonviolence had six key principles.

First, one can resist evil without resorting to violence.

Second, nonviolence seeks to win the ‘‘friendship and understanding’’ of the opponent, not to humiliate him.

Third, evil itself, not the people committing evil acts, should be opposed.

Richard Deats, former executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and editor of Fellowship magazine, called my attention today to the latest column by John Dear -- another former ED at FOR -- in the National Catholic Reporter. John now travels the world teaching about Jesus' message of nonviolence, and he writes about this message in the context of world spiritual leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thanks to my friend (and fire-breathing progressive blogger) Pam Spaulding for posting 'Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - those other speeches' to remind readers about King's unequivocal message about the injustice of war in his time.

Many of us peace activists are familiar with "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," delivered April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in Harlem. But I wasn't aware of "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam," a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967.

Read on to listen and read from these speeches.

Hello blog readers, and thank you for visiting us on this very special holiday. Martin Luther King Day is more than a day off, and it's more than a day on, too! This is a day for every resident of the United States to contemplate how much this man and this movement did to save our souls (either spiritually or metaphorically, as you prefer) and how we can work to continue their campaign for justice through nonviolence.

You might not know that Dr King was a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. I am going to write more later today about how FOR staffers Bayard Rustin and Glen Smiley helped King to create the foundation of his strategies on nonviolent resistance and how FOR's work with Thich Nhat Hanh later informed King's views on Vietnam. For now I give you this, Dr. King's 1958 membership application to FOR: