In the years since his murder, we have transformed King into a kind of innocuous black Santa Claus.

It baffles me that people think that obliterating the past will save them from its consequences, as if throwing away the empty cake plate would help you lose weight.

The Lord works through deeply flawed people, since He made so few of the other kind.

It appeared clear to me - partly because of the lies that filled my history textbooks - that the intent of formal education was to inculcate obedience to a social order that did not deserve my loyalty. Defiance seemed the only dignified response to the adult world.

Unjust social orders do not fall merely by appeals to the consciences of the oppressor, though such appeals may be an important element; history teaches us that they fall because a large enough number of people organize a movement powerful enough to push them down. Rarely do such revolutions emerge in a neat and morally pristine process.

If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth.

In the years since his murder, we have transformed King into a kind of innocuous black Santa Claus.