(91) MLK Day
6 x 6, oil
private collection
As a young girl, I was inspired by Dr. King's grace, courage, wisdom, and vigilant dedication to fighting poverty and encouraging peaceful solutions. He issued a challenge to people of all races and backgrounds to act, and he is one of the reasons I became a member of the ONE Campaign, an organization dedicated to making poverty history in our lifetime.
This eloquent message of peace and hope dates back 40 years, but it is just as applicable and timely today:
"We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but on the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody, that is far superior to the discords of war. Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race, which no one can win, to a positive contest to harness humanity's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all the nations of the world. In short we must shift the arms race into a peace race. If we have a will-and determination- to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment"
...Martin Luther King, Jr.