From the Newsroom -- Tony Dodero

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to you all.

Many of you are off work today to enjoy this national holiday that

commemorates someone believed to be one of the greatest civil rights

leaders ever to walk the earth.

The Rev. King had his detractors of course, people who mostly hated

his words of inclusion and calls for justice. They have tried to take

down his legacy by pointing to his failings as a human being. But they

were not successful, and we celebrate his accomplishments today.

No man is without failings and neither was King. But it’s hard not to

read of his life and hear his words and not believe he was a passionate,

deeply religious man, a proponent of nonviolence and peace and justice

who believed in the victory of good over evil. So much so that he lost

his life over it.

In the spirit of the holiday, I’m going to take a holiday myself by

offering up a batch of quotes from the slain leader as both a reminder of

what he stood for and as my own mini history lesson.

The quotes, taken from the bestselling book, “The Words of Martin

Luther King, Jr.,” I believe help to illustrate the man he was and the

beliefs he died for -- the very reason we mark his extraordinary life

today.

In memory of King’s birthday, which was actually last Tuesday the

15th, I give you snippets of some of his words that, strangely, more than

30 years after he was assassinated, seem just as pertinent now as they

were then.

ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT

o7 “If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country,

maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could

understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges,

because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there.

“But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of

the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press.

Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest

for right.”

f7

ON POVERTY

o7 “All too many of those who live in affluent America ignore those

who exist in poor America; in doing so, the affluent Americans will

eventually have to face themselves with the question that Eichmann chose

to ignore: How responsible am I for the well-being of my fellows? To

ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.”

f7

ON RACISM

o7 “There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough

to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths and downright

ignorance.”

f7

ON JUSTICE

o7 “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be

demanded by the oppressed.”

f7

ON NONVIOLENCE

o7 “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is

immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his

understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is

immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys

community and makes brotherhood impossible.”

f7

ON WAR

o7 “We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere

recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means

represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process. Ultimately you

can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the

seed and the end represents the tree.”

f7

ON PEACE

o7 “Now let me say that the next thing we must be concerned about if

we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent

affirmation of the sacredness of human life. Every man is somebody

because he is a child of God.”

f7

ON FAITH IN GOD

o7 “There is so much frustration in the world because we have relied

on gods rather than God. We have genuflected before the god of science

only to find that it has given us the atomic bomb, producing fears and

anxieties that science can never mitigate.

“We have worshiped the god of pleasure only to discover that thrills

play out and sensations are short lived. We have bowed before the god of

money only to learn that there are such things as love and friendship

that money cannot buy and that in a world of possible depressions, stock

market crashes and bad business investments, money is a rather uncertain

deity.

“These transitory gods are not able to save or bring happiness to the

human heart. Only God is able. It is faith in Him that we must

rediscover.”

f7

TONY DODERO is the editor. His column appears on Mondays. If you have

story ideas or concerns about news coverage, please send messages either

via e-mail to o7 tony.dodero@latimes.comf7 or by phone at

949-574-4258.