60 years back on a Southern summer day of 11th June 1963, not far from where I live, then Governor of Alabama George Wallace tried to block two black students from integrating into the University of Alabama. Only a month before in May 1963, he famously said, "Segregation then, Segregation now and Segregation forever".
George Wallace died unsung. But Martin Luther King, a young African American's Civil Rights movement picked the gauntlet from that point, gaining steam. Can't stop admiring this man's charisma and leadership. It's said that those who teach leadership quality at Harvard's Business School often allude "Leaders are born, can never be made".
Dr. King was a born leader. It was followed by his iconic speech "I have a Dream, when a man will be judged not by the color of his skin, but by content of his character." Clips of his speech on YouTube still raises goose bumps. He went on - "I have a dream, when on the Red Hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and former slave owners will be able to seat down together in tables of brotherhood". I am sure those who will be reading this feel their body hair charged and nerves shrugged off, such was the power in that speech.
Dr. King also famously said - "We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope". The rest we know is history. I live on the Red Soils of Georgia and have seen the changes. Martin Luther King never saw his dream come true during his life, cut short by an Assassin's bullet in a motel in Memphis,Tennessee in the turbulent time of 1960s. But a few decades down the road, his dream was realized. Not that racism has completely vanished from American soil, but it has come a long way since then, reinforced by Barack Obama being elected the first African-American President - something unimaginable not so long ago.
Newton's 3rd Law says - "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction". Same is applicable to human emotions. Every violent action would naturally follow with an equal or more violent reaction, often leading to a continuous, never ending cycle of revenge.
But Dr. King took a cue from Mahatma Gandhi of India and decided to fight violence in an exactly opposite manner, something different and out of box thinking, a concept called "Non-violence". The visuals of peaceful unarmed Black protesters being browbeaten brought into the living rooms of Americans by live TV had its impact, accentuated the Civil Rights Act.
America is known to think out of box, cradle, nurture and rewards talent. It has been blessed by able leaderships, at crucial junctures in history. From George Washington who gathered a bunch of rag tagged peasants to defeat the powerful British Army (incidentally America is the only country in history to have ever defeated the mighty British, an enviable power until the mid of the 20th century), Abraham Lincoln who kept the United States united after fighting a bloody Civil War, Roosevelt who rescued America from recession to thrive in World War II, the charismatic Kennedy who inspired NASA to launch man to moon, to Obama, a self admitted skinny kid with a funny look who vindicated the American dream by being a two term African American President, and so on. The dream continues. As the US Senator Ted Kennedy famously said - "The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die".
Happy birthday to Dr. King, the legend. You are the source of inspiration to many including me, beyond the boundaries of the land you were born, being the harbinger of positive changes in a world beyond borders. You aren't dead. You live forever in the hearts of many.
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