The Autobiography of Martin Luther King:Ch. 1-3

Early in the first chapter, King recalled a memory from his childhood. Growing up he was friends with a white boy, whom he became very close with. When the two eventually went to different school, the boy told him that his dad did not want his son playing with black kids. This seemed to confuse King.
“As my parents discussed some of the tragedies that had resulted from this problem and some of the insults they themselves had confronted on account of it, I was greatly shocked, and from that moment on I was determined to hate every white person. As I grew older and older this feeling continued to grow.” (Pg. 7)
This was very eye opening for me. As you study and learn about MLK you are under the impression that these were feelings he had not felt in his life. You are under the impression that any feeling of hate he would feel would be dealt with immediately. One would not imagine MLK making a choice to fill his heart with hatred.
“It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion that professes concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritual moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried.” (Pg 18)
While I am not familiar with the writings of Rauschenbusch I agree with this quote. I believe that it is impossible for a church to focus on the spiritual health of the people and not be concerned with the physical as well as the society that engulfs our hearts. I believe James 1:27 is a perfect biblical illustration of what MLK is saying.
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted fron the world”
“I am convinced now, as I was then, that man is an end because he is a child of God. Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to regulate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.” (Pg. 20)