Groote's Gaggle

hom·age

Pronunciation[hom-ij, om-]
–noun
Respect or reverence paid or rendered; In his speech he paid homage to Washington and Jefferson; the formal public acknowledgment by which a feudal tenant or vassal declared himself to be the man or vassal of his lord, owing him fealty and service; the relation this established of a vassal to his lord; something done or given in acknowledgement or consideration of the worth of another.

“And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today”.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. April 3, 1968 Memphis, TN

I happen to be in Memphis, TN today. I saw the many, many television trucks surrounding the Lorraine Hotel, the location where Dr. King was murdered and where today stands the National Civil Rights Museum. The media is marking this day in history, but will we? Forty years have passed and we’re still grappling with war and violence; we still grapple with race and religion.

I had the privilege to be in Memphis today. I also had the privilege to hear many people reciting the “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech on Good Morning America today. It was moving and surreal as I reflected on how far we’ve come in forty years and how far we still have to go.

2008 also marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s Poor People's Campaign. The Poor People's Campaign challenged our nation to end the poverty afflicting millions of Americans of all races and confront the entrenched triple evils of racism, excessive materialism (poverty) and militarism that threaten our nation and world.

"There is nothing new about poverty," he said. "What is new is that we now have
the means and the know-how to lift every child out of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will!"