Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Friends, 

On Monday we here at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, NY, will join businesses and governments all over the United States in closing in honor of the Martin Luther King national holiday. It is reasonable to ask, as some have, why we—a group of secular humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, defenders of science, etc., should pause to honor the Rev. Dr. King. We do not do so because of his religious thinking (though we do not deny his considerable influence on religion in America), but because of his principled, thoughtful, consistent defense of minority rights. King understood, and frequently wrote and spoke about, the importance of protecting the rights and ideas of those who might be, for whatever reason, unpopular. He cared passionately about the truth and ultimately lost his life, shot by a sniper in April, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, because of his unyielding support for nonviolence, minority rights, and his concerns for the downtrodden of all races and groups. (He was in Memphis to support and help improve the plight of garbage and sanitation workers there.) We join Americans and others everywhere in honoring a man of peace and vision--and thus in honoring the critical importance of free thought and minority points of view. Below are two quotes from King that we think are instructive. Please feel free to pass these on to others if you wish. 

With regards, 

Ed Buckner 
Executive Director 
Council for Secular Humanism 

[Many reputable organizations and prominent individuals defended the decision {U.S. Supreme Court decision banning state-composed and mandated school prayer, Engel v. Vitale},] among them a number of liberal Protestant ministers. Most prominent of these was The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, revered black leader, who called it "a sound and good decision reaffirming something that is basic in our Constitution, namely separation of church and state." 
(Leo Pfeffer, "Prayer in Public Schools: The Court's Decisions," in the "Church and State" issue of National Forum: The Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Winter, 1988, p. 26.)

"The hope of the world is still in dedicated minorities. The trail blazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been in the minority." 
(Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968, American civil rights leader, The Words of Martin Luther King. From Margaret Pepper, compiler and ed., The Harper Religious & Inspirational Quotation Book, New York: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 190.)