"The denial of human rights anywhere

is a threat to the affirmation of human rights everywhere."

In fact, Dr. King's struggle for human rights also embraced the politically oppressed living in foreign nations. He clearly understood that the struggle for freedom of the black man in America was inextricably interwoven with the universal struggle of all people, to be free from discrimination and oppression. My relationship with Martin Luther King becomes the more apparent when as a young idealist, who believes in the right of all to a decent standard of living regardless of race, political ideology, social status etc., I find serenity, comfort and solidarity and his words. I, like Dr. King, am not a revolutionary. I do not advocate a bloodthirsty war to change things in Haiti. I, too, do not believe in the notion that you deal with one evil by substituting another. It has always been clear to me that taking certain privileges away from the elite to give them to another group can only create a new elite, without making any fundamental changes in the Haitian social contract. Just as King understood that justice for blacks did not mean injustice for whites and others.

“I have a dream that one day, sons of

former slave and sons of former slave

owners will sit together at the table

of brotherhood."

The table of brotherhood he talks about is the starting point of the new social contract. Because of his refusal to fight discrimination with more discrimination, Dr. King was particularly adamant when it came to taking a stand against those of his race for expressing some views, which seemed discriminatory or anti-Semitic. His remarks to comments made by other black leaders such as Malcolm X (a member of the Nation of Islam) were clear and unequivocal.

"We cannot substitute one tyranny for

another, and for the black man to be

struggling for justice and then turn around

and be anti-Semitic is not only a very irrational

course, but it is a very immoral course."

At the end, we all have a personal relationship with Martin Luther king in some way, whether we recognize it or not, for what he lived and died for was to make this a better world for all of us, irrespective of race, color, religion, or social status. He taught us in tangible ways that non-violent protest is the only way to open the doors to a constructive dialogue, and from that dialogue would ensue reconciliation with our adversaries. “We may not simply sit and allow ourselves to become the passive bystander of the killing and murdering of our people. Repeatedly, we must reaffirm our right to be free” as Dr. King so eloquently puts it in his letter from Birmingham jail. Also, borrowing the words of Reinhold Neibhur: "freedom is never freely given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

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