I truly believe his teaching were relevant to the civil rights movement, violence and hatred wouldn’t get you where you wanted to go.
360,000 norther soldiers died in the civil war, should they have practiced love your enemy? Sometimes it just isn’t practical or legal.

My only issue is the false “celebrations” and here is what I mean. Every year at this time the administrators at my job want us to design lessons that showcase MLK and black history month (which of course is February). Here is the problem: as a biology teacher there are not too many African-American scientists, in fact none, that are part of the curriculum i.e. Darwin, TH Morgan, Mendel etc.. were not black. I could of course include a lesson on modern black scientists of which there are many but wouldn’t I be doing so on the basis of their color as opposed to their accomplishments? It is my opinion that MLK would be rolling over in his grave at the thought of my creating a lesson for a black scientist as opposed to just a scientist so that the focus was on the skin color and not the accomplishment. I will not allow race to cloud my judgement relative to scientific achievement.

Dr. King’s speech mentioned Lincoln and comments made after his death which is very interesting. I saw a history channel show on John Wilkes Booth who thought he brought down the tyrant and that he was shocked when he read about himself in the papers as “an enemy of the state”. Booth envisioned himself as a hero but even Lincoln’s worst enemies knew that he was a unifying leader.

Jesus also mentions to love your enemy for fear that you would become what you are trying to conquer.