INSIGHT NEWS January 17 - January 23, 2011 • MN Metro Vol. 37 No. 3 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • www.insightnews.com
Library of Congress
Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Remembering Mahatma King By Samuel Bastian McFarlane Media - Mumbai, India “I believe this man, more than anybody else in the modern world, caught the spirit of Jesus Christ and lived it more completely in his life. His name was Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi. And after he lived a few years, the poet Tagore, who lived in India, gave him another name: “Mahatma,” the great soul. And we know him as Mahatma Gandhi.” (Martin Luther King, Jr: Palm Sunday Sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, AL) When Howard Thurman at the end of his conversations with Mahatma Gandhi asked for a
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Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi
message to take back to the United States, Gandhi humbly regretted that he had been unable to make nonviolence a more visible practice worldwide and hinted someday some African American would succeed where he had failed. Looking back at events that unfolded since, Gandhi had almost prophetically announced the rise of one like Martin Luther King, Jr., who now history knows as the most significant American Civil Rights leader and torch-bearer of the nonviolent movement. The Gandhi’s methods, used in his struggle against the oppressive colonial rule in India, were successfully used by King and his contemporaries as the phenomenal force that changed the face of America.
Early on, King believed that by becoming a church minister he would be in the best position to lead his people to equality and freedom. Yet, during a period of introspection, he had “despaired of the power of love in solving social problems.” In 1950, King heard Mordecai Johnson, then president of Howard University, speak of his recent trip to India and Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance techniques. “His message was so profound and electrifying” that King immediately bought a number of books on Gandhi’s life and works. He read with fascination of the one who had successfully transformed the ethic of nonviolence into a political instrument against oppression.
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The Saint
Recollections of a Modern Saint By Mahmoud El-Kati
In his book, entitled American Society Since 1945 (Quadrangle Books, Chicago), professor William L. O’Neill cited Martin Luther King as “probably the most important figure in America.” We shall leave such claims to history and history writers for refinement. And while that contention should not be ignored, it will do well for us to view it with critical eyes. History books are so filled with pages of lives written large, and upon critical examination, we discover some embarrassing flaws in our heroes, or sometimes overestimate the merits of their deeds. Hence, we delionize “the great one.” The wisdom of the ages warns us that things are very rarely what they seem to be.
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Robin Hickman
Courtesy Robin Hickman
Robin Hickman keynotes CBM King celebration By Al McFarlane Editor-in-Chief
National Archives
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Mathew Ahmann, Executive Director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, at a civil rights march on Washington, D.C.
Kam Williams Dr. West’s prognosis for the country
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Aesthetics
Kandi Burruss: On top of the world
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“Unarmed Truth:” The Blueprint for Lasting Change.” is the Council on Black Minnesotans theme marking the 25th anniversary of the Minnesota’s adoption of the federal Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. Independent TV/film
Commentary Sharpton: Nonviolence must prevail
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producer and social impact activist, Robin Hickman, a community engagement consultant and president of SoulTouch, keynotes the MLK Holiday celebration program at noon, Monday, January 17 at Concordia University in St. Paul. The bill to adopt the federal holiday in Minnesota was
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Lifestyle
Chasing away the winter blues
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