‘Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that’

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Kimberly Spencer
  • 59th Medical Wing Public Affairs
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  Martin Luther King’s words still ring as true today as they did 30 years ago. His contributions to our history helped a nation to right unspeakable wrongs, which were tarnishing the name “America.”

Even after the Supreme Court struck down segregation in 1954, human rights offenses were both law and custom in much of America. Before Dr. King and his movement, a respectable black seamstress could be thrown into jail and fined simply because she refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus so a white man could sit down. A six-year-old black girl could be spit on by a white New Orleans mob simply because she wanted to go to the same school as white children. Highly educated black people were routinely denied the right to vote, serve on juries or buy or rent homes wherever they chose.

America needed the help of Dr. Martin Luther King. Within a 13-year span, from 1955 to his death in 1968, he was able to explain, expose and extricate America from many of the wrong doings going on. His tactics of non-violent passive resistance to racial injustice gave America the voice of reason needed at the time.

While his voice still rings in our ears, it is important to remember the heart of that of which he spoke. Many groups today ask for tolerance. Rather than resolving our differences, tolerance often means little more than leaving one another alone. It does nothing to promote understanding. There is little in the concept of tolerance to promote true compassion and acceptance of one another.

Tolerance has no cohesion or healing power in society. Dr. King did not speak in terms of tolerance. His ideal was love. Yet in current discussions of human relations the word love is seldom used. Dr. King insisted love was the dominant or critical value by which we could overcome racial strife. That same concept of love and acceptance is what is needed today.

The love he spoke of was a biblical love, one that is unconditional, unselfish and seeks the absolute good of another party. That kind of love is a tough love, one that confronts wrong and injustice with the truth that all people are created equal.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be honored over the next several days, with an official observance held Jan. 17. These ceremonies and celebrations remind us of how his campaigns awakened the conscience of our society.

It is because of Dr. King and the movement that he led that the United States can claim to be the leader of the “free world” without inviting smirks of disdain and disbelief. He and the courageous men and women who marched beside him enabled our country to achieve greater heights through love and peace.

It is up to us to keep the dream alive, not just by tolerating one another, but also by loving one another.