"A Fire That No Water Could Put Out" - MLK at the High Museum of Art

When I was driving to Georgia I heard on NPR that there was a photography exhibit to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, so of course I had to make a detour.  The title of the exhibit was "A Fire That No Water Could Put Out", which was referring to the incident in the first week of May 1963 when Birmingham police and firemen attacked civil rights demonstrators with fire hoses, many of whom were children, in the streets bordering Kelly Ingram park.

I have a book of quotes "The Words of Martin Luther King Jr." that I bought a few years ago, and of course with the troubles we are having in our nation now with fear breeding hatred for those who are different his words are as true today as they were then.  And so on this anniversary of his death I will just let his own words and the photographs I felt most drawn to speak for themselves. 

"Justice for black people will not flow into society merely from court decisions nor from fountains of political oratory. Nor will a few token changes quell all the tempestuous yearnings of millions of disadvantaged black people.  White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society."

Grass Roots Organizer, Mississippi 1968

"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." 

Baltimore, 1963

"We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity."

MLK funeral street scene, Atlanta 1968

"There is little hope for us until we become tough-minded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance."

Freedom bus riders, Ohio 1964

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."

Inside the State Capitol of Georgia

"There is nothing that expressed massive civil disobedience any more than the Boston Tea Party, and yet we give this to our young people and our students as a part of the great tradition of our nation.  So I think we are in good company when we break unjust laws , and I think those who are willing to do it and accept the penalty are those who are part of the saving of the nation.

Outside the State Capitol of Georgia 

"Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.  Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."