The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

DR Martin Luther King, Jr, would’ve been 93 today, had he not been assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. With tensions running high at the height of the civil rights movement in the Deep South, King had less than 24 hours before his violent demise spoke cryptically of his impending premature end in his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple Church of God.

In 2001, the Estate of Martin Luther King published A Call to Conscience. Edited by Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard and published by Hachette Book Group, A Call to Conscience has eleven of King’s landmark speeches he delivered throughout his storied career. I would like to quote several of them, in light of the sheer amount of violence that continues to inundate New Providence.

I am hoping that those involved in the criminal enterprise would read this letter and would be moved to read the aforementioned volume in its entirety. One particular case underscores the urgency of the crisis unfolding in the capital. A gentleman on bail was gunned down in recent days in an inner-city area on Nassau. He was a suspect in the murder of another individual who was well-known to the police. The murder of the first individual tells me that there is a lot of revenge killings in Nassau and the Progressive Liberal Party government seems unable to adequately address it, as the underlying issue stems from hate. These criminals hate one another and they hate the state they’re constantly attempting to engage violently in shootouts. Indeed, it is futile to attempt a coup; for the state is backed by God. Moreover, one is given the impression by the continued bloodletting that these murderers have no fear of God or an afterlife without Jesus Christ. They must understand, as King did, that death is but a comma. Anyway, here are the MLK quotes:

“Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder.”

“Through violence you can murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate.”

“Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.”

“In a violent racial situation, the power structure has the local police; state troopers; the National Guard, and finally, the Army to call on -- all of which are predominantly white.”

For I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many white Citizens’ Councilors in the South to want to hate, myself , because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.”

“There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men and poor men die; old people die and young people die. Death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.”

“Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance.”

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama.

June 30, 2022.