In a nation so divided along sociopolitical lines, it’s meaningful that the inauguration of a new president and the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., America’s most revered civil rights activist, fall in the same week.

Before King was assassinated on a motel balcony in Memphis on April 4, 1968, he had been warned of possible danger. In what was to be his last speech the day before, King said he wished for a long life but that death didn’t matter because he’d “been to the mountaintop” and seen “the promised land.”

The next day his death sparked race riots across the country, not unlike what we saw in a number of American cities last year.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan created the national holiday for the civil rights activist, stating:

“So, each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the Commandments he believed in and sought to live every day: Thou shall love thy God with all thy heart, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. And I just have to believe that all of us - if all of us, young and old, Republicans and Democrats, do all we can to live up to those Commandments, then we will see the day when Dr. King’s dream comes true, and in his words, ‘All of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, … land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’?”

During the huge civil rights rally in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963, King discarded a prepared script and delivered his memorable “I Have a Dream” speech. In it he hoped that his children could live in a nation where “they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Dr. Alveda King, the niece of MLK, is a former college professor and representative in the Georgia state House. She’s also served on numerous boards and committees, including the Coalition of African American Pastors, and the Judeo-Christian Coalition for Constitutional Restoration.

Alveda also knows about racial hatred. During the heat of her uncle’s struggle for racial justice in the Civil Rights Movement, her family home was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

In an opinion published during last summer’s racial violence, she encouraged spiritual leaders to lead the way to encourage people who are frightened and frustrated in this tense time in our history. In order to survive the chaotic storms of life, Alveda, like her uncle, found her peace in the Christian Gospels.

As we are in the eye of the storm, she said we must stand in unity as one human race and reject the socially engineered concept that our skin colors and ethnicities divide us into racial groups.

Alveda said if her uncle were alive today he would be fighting nonviolently for justice and against all forms of hatred and racism.

In defining his principles of “love not hate,” MLK explained that nonviolence is the method of a strong person; that it does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding; and that it is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil.

Nonviolence, he added, is a willingness to accept suffering without retaliation, to accept blows from the opponent without striking back. He said that a nonviolent person can achieve this because he knows that “love” and “justice” will win in the end.

He also stated that the fight is not one of black people versus white people, but in achieving “a victory for justice and the forces of light.”

Those in government leadership threatening to undermine or dismiss the Judeo-Christian values that support our Constitution should heed Martin Luther King’s words.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com