Human Freedom Across Borders

Dr. King’s Law: Human Freedom Across Borders

“I see God working in this period of the 20th century in a way that (people) in some strange way are responding….The masses of people are rising up wherever they are assembled today.  Whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, Accra, Ghana, New York City, Atlanta, GA, Jackson, MS or Memphis, TN, the cry is always the same, ‘We Want to be Free..’ ”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” 3 April 1968

As a child of the Black Church in the American South, it was commonplace for me to hear the stories of black freedom fighters like Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and Sojourner Truth.  Though they were legally regarded as second class citizens in this country, they appealed to a higher law, the law of equality in God, to stand boldly for the just treatment and freedom for their people.  I also learned of leaders like Marcus Mosiah Garvey and Shirley Chisholm, first and second generation black immigrants to the US who challenged and fought against laws that denied human freedom.  Early in life, I learned that anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiments were interconnected.  Whether descendents of the enslaved in the US or the colonized around the world, we are part of a shared struggle for human freedom and liberation.  On this 53rd Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from the Birmingham Jail, it is important for us to remember that Dr. King understood the same.

Read the rest of the blog at Mobilize the Immigrant Vote California: Dr. King’s Law: Human Freedom Across Borders.