In memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.

king.jpgAssassinated 40 years ago, King’s words about civil rights echo today in the climate battle:

“We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The ‘tide in the affairs of men’ does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’ “

I first saw this in Mike Tidwell’s book, The Ravaging Tide. Sen. Obama also loves to quote the second sentence.

The time to act is now.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 10:25 amand is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “In memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

  1. JCH Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    What you talkin’bout, Willis? It’s never too late to adapt.

  2. Amaranthus Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 10:34 am

    Incredibly apt quotation - it could have been written for today.

    Does this mean that people never learn, or that we have the willpower to make the right choice?

  3. Sorghum Crow Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 11:14 am

    Very appropriate.

  4. David B. Benson Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Off-topic, but JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER is much more pessimistic than either MLK Jr. or even Joe Romm:

    http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7/

    An (almost) we’re doomed piece.

  5. David B. Benson Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

    Down the page aways here:

    http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

    Kunstler does a take on a recent conference in Aspen CO hosted by the Rocky Mountain Institute. If Joe has time he might care to deconstruct that piece.

  6. justus Says:
    April 4th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

    Joe, I am an admirer of your blog, but this was a misnamed entry. Though tempting, it is dangerous to transfer a quote - sans context - to a cause King never advocated. So far as sustainability requires us to redefine prosperity, his views are sort of applicable. But this type of quasi-association is easily read as appropriation, which is off-putting in the extreme.

    This applies even more to the later post on green prosperity. Comparing his assassination to a Kansas congressional vote? to a ‘green dream’ that is not King’s? Please. (I understand you didn’t write that, but it’s on your blog)

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