Super U Podcast | Martin Luther King Jr.
On today’s podcast, we honor Martin Luther King Jr. and Martin Luther King Day. Click here to subscribe to the Super U Podcast. Need a sneak peek? Below are the main takeaways from the episode.
Super U Podcast | Martin Luther King Jr.
[5:03] Your Life Has Significance
“Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint. And that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, as the model for those who are to build the building and a building is not well erected without a good sound and solid blueprint. Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your life and the question is, whether you have a proper, a solid, and a sound blueprint and I want to suggest some of the things that should be in your life’s blueprint. Number one in your life blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth, and your own ‘somebodiness.’ Don’t allow anybody to make you feel that you are nobody. Always feel that you count, always feel that you have worth and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.”
[7:30] Be the Best Version of You
“…found your love to be a street sweeper. Sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the metro Metropolitan Opera and sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.” If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill, be a scrub in the valley. But be the best little scrub on the side of the reel. Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be the sun, be a star. For a reason by size that you win or you fail, be the best of whatever you are.”
[8:55] Keep Moving
“Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair, had tax in it. Boards drawn up, places with no carpet on the floor, bare. But all the time I’ve been a climbing on and reaching landings and turning corners and sometimes going in the dark, but ain’t been no light. So boy don’t you stop now. Don’t you to sit on the steps cause you finds us kinda hard. But I still going, boy. I still climbing. And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. Well, life for none of us has been a crystal stair. But we must keep moving. We must keep going. If you can’t fly, run. If you can run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl, but by all means, keep moving.”
[10:48] Learn From Your Opposition
“…When it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear these questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. Far from his view, we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition. If we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are calling the opposition.”
[11:21] “The time is always right to do right.”
“We’ve got to get rid of one or two false notions that continue to exist in our society. One is the notion that only time can solve the problem of racial injustice. I’m sure you’ve heard this idea. It is the notion almost that is something in the very, very flow of time that will miraculously cure all evils. And I’ve heard this over and over again. They are those and they often sincere people who say to negros and allies in the white community, that we should slow up and just be nice and patient and continue to pray in 100 or in 200 years the problem will work itself out. Because only time can solve the problem. I think that is an answer to that myth. And it is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I’m absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme righteous in our nation, have often used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words of the bad people and the violent actions of the bad people. But for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.” Somewhere, we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must have time and we must realize that the time is always right. To do right.”
[13:38] “We’ve got some difficult days ahead…”
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life, longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I seen the promised land. I may not get there. But I want you to know tonight, that we the people will get to the promised land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the Lord.”
[15:21] “I have a Dream.”
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama — with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification — one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be plain and the crooked places will be made straight, “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brother-hood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire; let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania; let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado; let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that.
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia; let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. “From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
“Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
Listen to the full episode here.
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The Super U Podcast is hosted by #1 bestselling author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman.
