Soul power as a catalyst for courage.
I’m amazed as we celebrate this King week by the courage of Martin Luther King Jr. I’m not speaking to the courage that it took to fight for civil rights; that was Herculean in its own right, but the courage it took later in Kings experience to speak out very clearly against the war in Vietnam. America celebrated King’s nonviolent approach when it came to the sit-in’s, dealing with Bull Connor, the riots in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. However the moment that King’s days on this earth became numbered in America was the moment in which he decided to speak out against Vietnam. King had the courage not to segregate his fight for justice just to the civil rights movement in the southern states and northern ghettos.
King as a leader was courageous enough to expand his conviction so that change was not just about the issue and plight of African-Americans in America underneath Jim Crow, it was about humanity.
It’s going to take that kind of courageous leadership to deal with and have good success with the problems we face today. If you listen to the speech that’s embedded below in this blog you’ll find that many of the problems that were facing America in the 1960s are the same problems we face today. There must be a revolution of leaders who are courageous enough to expand their convictions for the greater good. We can’t celebrate equality and condemn it at the same time. We must grow a backbone of courageous conviction that is fueled by soul power (love) and stand up straight with the truth that we can make a difference.
I believe that Dr. King’s soul power fueled his courage even until his assassination. And I don’t think he was assassinated because of the civil rights movement, I fully believe he was assassinated because of his stand against the United States’s choices as it pertains to war overseas and poverty domestically. Have we become more concerned with politic and prudence or have you reached a point where standing up and fighting for the right thing is just right? Have we lost touch with soul power? What is fueling our leadership? Personal pride and power? Or, power to love? That’s the King-ian question for all of us as leaders, and its surely the question for our political and social leadership today.