I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech from Birmingham’s jail in 1963. In a few days the community will celebrate his birthday and shortly thereafter “Black History Month”. Perhaps we should reflect on his words and their applicability to the problems of today: 

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride towards freedom is not the White Citizens Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says”: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but can not agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical consent of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of GOOD will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ILL will. …….I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exists for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow  of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, top a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. “