In Celebration of MLK

In honor of the celebration of the life and message of the Rev. Martin Luther King, I quote some of his most famous teachings.  From Letter from a Birmingham Jail:

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

From his I Have a Dream:

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

And another section from Letter (which was pointed out by Jeffrey Anderson at The Weekly Standard), in which King stated that,

time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God....

King's teaching cuts across many of the lessons taught today by those in government and academia -- that there aren't any permanent truths; that human nature is changeable; and that the Founders set our nation on principles that should be rejected and redefined to suit us in our own day.

Let us once again live up to the principles that the Rev. King held most dear.

UPDATE:

Take a look at this piece up on CNN.com regarding the idea (strange for the writer I'm sure) that MLK is a hero for conservatives.  Check out this excerpt from an eminent historian:

"He was against all policies based on race," says Peter Schramm, a conservative historian. "The basis of his attack on segregation was 'judge us by the content of our character, not by the color of our skin.' That's a profound moral argument."