Observations placeholder

Extract AUGUST 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King, Jr.

[we have] a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.

Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively.

I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. 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.

We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.