As I read this book, I came to appreciate the work of Martin Luther King Jr.. While he was alive, I lived too far away from the South to know what he was about. Now I have met a few people of his race, which made this book much more meaningful.

The part that impressed me the most was his talk criticizing the involvement of the United States in fighting in Vietnam. He made it very clear how wrong what we were doing there was. The following two quotations are from that chapter.

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing oriented Society to a person oriented Society." (Page 148)

"We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of History are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of Nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating Paths of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice [of] life and good against the damning choice of death and Evil." (page 150) ( )

Despite all the falsehoods or truths about the man...his message was clear and timeless. His Letters from a Birmingham Jail leapt into my life and changed me. If you have kids...awaken them to his writings. Gandhi, Buddha, Jesus, and a few others all had a similar message for us. We should try to listen. This is a good intro to Mr. King Jr's writings.