April 4th marks 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. When we think of the great civil rights leader, we are apt to remember his profound "I have a dream" speech. He said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
Dr. King dreamt of a day when black Americans would truly stand as equals with white America and that they would not be "judged by the colour of their skin but the content of their character."
Martin Luther King not only believed in racial equality, but harmony of all peoples. He rejected all forms of violence, and that included the violence of abortion.
A number of years ago I was invited to deliver the keynote address to a U.S. National Right to Life Prayer breakfast. I accepted. I spoke from my wheelchair about the equality and natural dignity of all human life from conception to natural death -- from the womb to the tomb.
After my speech, I was mingling with people. A woman came up to me and we visited for a few minutes before I went to my table.
"Do you know that woman is?" somebody asked me.
"No." I replied.
"That's Dr. Alveda King, Martin Luther King's niece. She's a civil rights leader in her own rite."
I was stunned. Why did I deliver the keynote address with her in the banquet room? She should have delivered the address!
Dr. King sees her pro-Life advocacy as a continuation of the civil rights struggle. She's right. After all, as her uncle said "How can the 'dream' survive if we murder the children?" Everyone has the right to live, to breath fresh air and be warmed by the sun. Alveda King is taking that struggle, for life itself, to the places of power and to main street America. The right to life is the first and highest right. Without life guaranteed, all other rights become arbitrary and uncertain.
Mark
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