Frank O'Gorman

What Would Martin Luther King Say To Wall Street, Congress And The Supreme Court?

Martin Luther King, Jr. is America’s greatest prophet. He confronted racism, militarism and economic injustice in the United States with speeches that were eloquent, accessible yet profoundly intellectual.

His linking the Vietnam War abroad with poverty and worker exploitation at home ultimately cost him his life. By challenging U.S. imperialism – the gravest sin against U.S. exceptionalism – he incurred the wrath of the forces of greed and was struck down at the all too young age of thirty-nine.

Yet his powerful words resound across the decades and, sadly, are equally applicable to current social and world conditions. King’s ability to critique the United States forty-four years after his assassination testifies to the fundamental veracity of his prophesy. It also challenges all who love justice and peace to continue the struggle for the Beloved Community, God’s commonwealth on Earth.

Inspired by the popular saying among evangelicals, “What would Jesus do?” I offer the following Martin Luther King quotes from famous speeches in response to the hypothetical question, “What would Martin Luther King say today?” Be forewarned these quotes may offend cherished beliefs.  However, how can we build the Beloved Community without first identifying and renouncing our idols?

What would Martin Luther King say to Wall Street?

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

What would Martin Luther King say to Occupy Wall Street?

We who in engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

What would Martin Luther King say to Capitalists?

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

What would Martin Luther King say to Mitt Romney?

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

What would Martin Luther King say to Rick Santorum?
 
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

What would Martin Luther King say to Ron Paul and Libertarians?

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

What would Martin Luther King say to President Obama?

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.

What would Martin Luther King say to Congress?

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

What would Martin Luther King say to Democrats in Congress?

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society … shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

What would Martin Luther King say to Republicans in Congress?

I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.

What would Martin Luther King say to the Tea Party?

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’

What would Martin Luther King say to the Supreme Court?

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

What would Martin Luther King say to Multi-National Corporations?

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

What would Martin Luther King say to United Technologies and the whole Military-Industrial Complex?

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

What would Martin Luther King say to the Pentagon?

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.

What would Martin Luther King say to the people of the United States?

I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “We ain’t goin’ study war no more.”

What would Martin Luther King say to the US Chamber of Commerce?

If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.

What would Martin Luther King say to Non-Unionized Workers?

Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.

What would Martin Luther King say to the Middle Class?

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.

What would Martin Luther King say to Prison-Industrial Complex?

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

What would Martin Luther King say about the Death Penalty?

“I do not think that God approves the death penalty for any crime, rape and murder included. Capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology, and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”

What would Martin Luther King say to Undocumented Immigrants?

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice!

What would Martin Luther King say to White People?

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. […] Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

What would Martin Luther King say to Palestinians?

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained!

What would Martin Luther King say to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee?

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

What would Martin Luther King say to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender People?
There are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted … I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry.

What would Martin Luther King say to the National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family?

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

What would Martin Luther King say to Heterosexuals?

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.

What would Martin Luther King say to the Human Rights Campaign?

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

What is Martin Luther King saying to You Now?

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

… . . ?