Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A Letter To America 2024
Rev. Dr. C. Anthony Hunt, Senior Pastor
Epworth Chapel United Methodist Church
This year marks the 95th year of the anniversary of the birth of one of America’s greatest peacemakers, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, amidst the persistent crucible of racial turmoil that was endemic across America – especially in the deep South – King committed his life, work, and ministry to employing nonviolent methods to addressing racial and economic injustice.
This year is also the 60th year since King received the Nobel Peace Prize. At the time of his selection as the winner of the Prize in October 1964 and at his receipt of the prize in Oslo, Norway on December 10, 1964, King was the Prize’s youngest recipient. In his acceptance speech, as an emblem of his leadership in the nonviolent struggle for racial and economic justice in America and peace around the world, King recast a vision of peace, justice, and equality. Today, we are left to wonder what Martin Luther King might say to America if he were alive in 2024. Here is some of what he might write to us today:
Dear Sisters and Brothers –
I greet you in the name of Christ, who came to earth to be the Prince of Peace, and I pray that the peace of God that passes our understating is with you and yours today. In this year when people around the world are celebrating the 95th year of my birth, I am reminded of the calling I had to be a peacemaker throughout my life, and my commitment to join in the work for peace with justice across America and worldwide.
After the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1958, I shared in my first book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” that “true peace is not merely the absence of tension, but it is the presence of justice.” And so today, in striving for peace, we are reminded of the vision of the psalmist who shared the hope that “righteousness and peace would kiss one another” (Psalm 85:10).
As we celebrate my birth, we are also reminded of the ways that peace is challenged in many places in America and abroad. We experience the lack of peace in the violence that continues to afflict many of our cities, such as we witness in cities like Baltimore, MD, and Washington, DC. We see the lack of peace in the continuing proliferation of gun violence and mass murders across America in schools, shopping malls, and other spaces where people gather for work and leisure. We witness the lack of peace in ongoing global conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and other places around the world.
America, I remind you that violence is antithetical to peace, and as a Christian minister, I must say that violence is antithetical to the will of God and God’s vision of the Beloved Community.
I also remind you that 2024 marks the 60th year since my acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the American Civil Rights movement, which I helped lead. In my acceptance speech, I stated that “the Civil Rights movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial moral and political question of our time – the need for (humanity) to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”
And so, as I shared 60 years ago, I believe today that the proper remedy to what I deemed to be the triplets of evil – racism, poverty/classism, and war – is nonviolence. As I stated then, “I (still) refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction.”
In closing this letter, there is much more that I could share but I conclude with a prayer that the words that I shared at the University of Oslo in my Nobel acceptance speech would ring true for America and the world today, that “unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
And I also pray that you will all be mindful of my final words in Oslo that “Peace is more precious than silver and gold.”
May God’s love, peace, and justice be yours –
Your brother Martin