Friday was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the past few days, the media has been covering aspects of King’s life and death, and you have no doubt heard snippets from the many famous speeches he made, including the one made shortly before his death, with haunting words that seemed to predict his own pending demise that was then just hours away.

Dr. King left a legacy of hope that still endures, and a gift of his powerful words for generations to come. Finding your single favorite King quotation may be a challenge itself, but do you think you could pick your top seven favorites from a list? Here’s a list that might help you find many from which to select.

My favorite, incidentally, speaks to me about the reality that there are so many legions of good people who are more content to sit back and do nothing, while the more vocal extremists of both sides fight their battles, accomplishing little except increasing hostilities that only result in the needed change not happening.  That’s an important thing to keep in mind, I think, regardless of the subject of the argument.

Get ready…that’s this week’s challenge.

• First to play last week: Paul of Aurora Walking Vacation. Paul was first-to-play for the second week in a row! Congratulations!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Choose your seven favorite quotations from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.) You may include this link in the URL space when leaving your comment, or in the comment itself. As long as it’s there in one spot or the other.

My Answers:
1. “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
2. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
3. “A right delayed is a right denied.”
4. “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.”
5. “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
6. “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
7. “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”