Today is The International Human Rights Day and marks the end of the 16 Days Campaign. I will leave you with wise words from some of our past leaders and great humanists.
“The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be wronged and trampled under foot.”
William Ellery Channing
“A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.”
Felix Adler
“America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense . . . Human rights invented America.”
Jimmy Carter
“A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”
A. Philip Randolph
“No man is good enough to govern any woman without her consent.”
Susan B. Anthony
“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.’ There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: ‘The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.’”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
My prayer for you today is that these wise words will sink in and give you a sense of urgency in fixing what is wrong in our world, whatever cause you choose to support.
In His Grace,
Jennifer Joy
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