Martin Luther King Jr.

A Prophetic Voice in Jewish, Multireligious, and American Life

Criticism Denies Historical and Current Role of Black Church as Central to the Spiritual, Political, and Social Life of the Community

Washington DC January 21, 2008 On this Martin Luther King Day observance, the Institute for Progressive Christianity (IPC) rejects the recent media attacks against the black church, specifically Trinity United Church of Christ, where Barack Obama attends.

Investors Business Daily's January 15th editorial decried Trinity Church for its "'unashamedly black' church that preaches the politics of black nationalism. And its dashiki-wearing preacher - who married Obama and his wife and now acts as his personal spiritual adviser - is militantly Afrocentric."

I was one year old when Martin Luther King Jr. died, so I can’t really say that I knew him when. Growing up as a Filipino American in the America of the 1970s and 1980s, though, he was still a presence in my life. I saw a lot of excerpts of his “I Have a Dream” speech playing on t.v. and his words gave me this feeling that this was a man to be respected and admired. Spending my early childhood in military bases, where I played with kids of many different races and religions, I never experienced any racism or prejudice, so the injustices that King talked about seemed like something from long ago. It wasn’t until my Dad retired in 1979 and we had to live outside the base that I encountered racism of any sort and it was a shock to me. When I heard the “I Had A Dream” excerpts on t.v. that year, it gave me the first appreciation of what King was fighting against.