Waleed Basyouni – The Legacy Of MLK
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The conversation discusses the struggles of the Catholic Catholic community in the United States, including Martin Luther King and his role in the movement for justice. The speakers emphasize the importance of faith and identifying racist individuals, while also acknowledging the struggles of the public schools and private schools. They also touch upon the use of Dr. Martin King as a force in transportation systems and the importance of faith in the community. The transcript is a jumbled mix of characters and symbols, making it difficult to summarize the conversation in a coherent way.
AI: Summary ©
That hamdulillah no matter who want to stay in who wanna stop hero, when I was a villa him and Sharon em fusina woman sejati Imani Anna Maria de la furama de La Hoya Ube. Lil Farah hodja or Chateau La Ilaha Illa la hora de cada wash Madonna Muhammad and Abu basura along Musalia Mohammed Mohammed. Khaimah zuleta Allah Ibrahim Ali Ibrahim in Naka, hamidou Majeed,
Eva de la. All praise due to align His praise and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, his family, his companions and his followers until the day of judgment, I bear witness that allows the only one worthy of worship and Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is lost on Final messenger. My dear brothers and sisters, on the third Monday of every year of the third Monday of January, every year, we in the United States, observe what we call the Martin Luther King Day, which was was last Monday. And it is the day that mark basically January 15, that's when he was born. Martin Luther King was born in 1929, in Atlanta, January 15. And he was assassinated in April
4, in 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, which it means he lived only about what 39 years age of 39 years, this iconic person, this person who the whole world recognize his wisdom, his words of wisdom, his methods, his living, he's living a life legacy today only lived 39 years, it's kind of hard to grasp that. And to see that great impact the T have done not only into our society in our country, but to the whole world, as one of the leaders of the movement of the civil rights movement in modern time.
And that day became an observed day on a federal holiday, what 15 years after his death, the bill was signed by Reagan in 1983. And for the record, the President was opposing that.
Just for the record, and he was opposing to sign it. But he ended up after three years, basically signing this stuff federal holiday in 1986. But even though in 1986, became a federal holiday in the United States, not every state started taking this as a holiday. It took actually way more years, until it became basically cross the United States in every state recognized as a federal holiday. And that was during george HW Bush in 1991.
In Texas, we were not very valid Actually, we adopted that federal holiday in 19.
What in 1987 40 years only after the bill was signed, and Texas will recognize it as an optional holiday. Anyway, my point is that is a lot of lessons we can learn from the live of this man. And we as a community today, we cannot separate ourselves, I just happen to be Muslim, and he didn't happen to be a Muslim. It doesn't mean that we cannot learn from his life. If he's not, if it's not a person, this is it will not stop us from basic, we are now enjoying so many benefits in life in this society, as the result of the Fallen of Allah Subhana Allah, then the work the hard work of this man, and many men with him who fought and sacrificed everything in their life, just to ensure that
to me, and you today will enjoy the freedom that we have today.
We owe this man and so many people who, especially Muslim Americans, we all in the least that to know about the legacy, about what the fault for what they stood up for. and learning from their life and be learning from the experience. It is something that's what we're we have a say in Islam very famous. People think it's a hadith but there's not a hadith from the prophets of Allah. But there's a statement that the scholar said, which is a hick metal bar, lateral movement. In our agenda for who I want to be here. It's a statement by scholars widely accepted to make common sense. He said, Word of Wisdom is something that every person should search for, or wisdom is something that you
search for. Wherever you find wisdom, whomever you find, offering your wisdom you should take it regardless of their background or
race, religion, whatever. So there are so many we can learn from this man. Beyond the lasting impact of Dr. King's contribution to our society, his method, his reactions remains as an important lessons that can be applied in many challenging situations today that we face as a community we face as a society we face as a country today. He is a living legacy of lessons that basically each of us can apply in our own lives.
And I will share a few points that I would like to point out, even there are so many to be mentioned. Number one, for me, every time I think about Martin Luther King's live and struggle, I always say this, that this man always was driven by his dreams, driven by his goals, even though he has so many problems in life. But he was not driven by these problems as much as he was driven by his goals and dreams. And there is a big difference between you waking up in the morning and all what you think about the problems and the challenges and the bad thing in the negative things, versus you woke up in the morning. And all what you think about is the goals and the dreams that you
want to achieve. And when we think of Martin Luther King, we always connect him to his famous speech that he was giving in front of a quarter million participants who came from all over the country in Washington, DC, when he delivered that famous talk and a speech on the steps of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, I believe it was 19 what 63, something like that, in 1963. And that speech, he said the famous quote, I have a dream.
And that's what it does. So I hope that us as a community today, that we all see you and ask ourselves as community as society, as family as individuals.
What is your dream? What are your what what are your dreams in life? What's the dream that we want to achieve? What unfortunately, even without talking about, are we taking the necessary steps and some people even lost their dream.
There is many people around the world today, they not even allowed to dream
of a better life. They're not allowed even to speak about a dream that they wish to see their countries and their society and their community that's even not allowed for them to do. And many of us because of so many challenges, and difficulties in our life, that facing us that killed our dreams. And that should not be the case. Because I can guarantee you if you have a dream, and this has become something that you think about you want my son always say he wants to be a soccer player. Another one want to live in the moon. Not sure about that. But you know, someone have a dream. And he really sincerely pursuing his dreams, he ended up getting that dream and achieving this dream.
Number two,
one of the things that very interesting about the man's of this man's life, Dr. King's life, that he got out of his circle.
He didn't just basically kept himself inside that small circle of that church, where he grow, or that community in the south where he stayed with his own community, you know, he basically broaden his horizons.
It is so important for us to go beyond basically our routines lives, our basically the people that we serve familiar with, to come to get out of that comfort zone, and challenge ourselves to know new people to see other experience that in life and to learn from it. For example, prior to entering Morehouse College in 1944, when he was 15 years old, he was he decided to go up north to Connecticut, and he work in a tobacco farm. You might see this as something simple but was not simple in his life. He wrote to his parents, something very interesting. He said for the first time in my life, I found that you can eat anywhere you want. There were no separation separation between
people. Is it for the first time, my life, I saw that this is even possible that I can eat with white people or whoever I want to eat with that's
Not something he never experienced when he was in the south, him traveling up north have changed his perspective about situations based on race and color from just being an annoyed fact that you have to live with to be something that I can challenge, something that did not necessarily to be the case.
You know,
also, when Dr. King studied the teaching of Gandhi, and he was fascinated by game by Gandhi's methods, especially after, basically
his
the struggle that he had to until he finished college, despite trying to turn this to be a history, lesson, turistic class, but my point is that when he saw how Gandhi was a non violent person who struggle for the rights of the Indian, and he was a non violent person, basically, he decided, and it's his movement was successful, he decided to travel all the way to India, and to learn from basically that experiment, and to bring it back to the United States. And he get to know techniques and ways of what we call nonviolent social change. And he brought it back to the United States. So many examples like this,
didn't only limited himself to his own group, and small group of people. He was a he was ready and open mind to accept other people's feedback, other methods, even though By the way, nonviolent methods of resistance was not a very popular method. If you read about his struggle, there is a lot of people of that time will prefer the confrontation, the violent method than the fight the picking of the weapons, and I'm not here to judge which methods in which and which person is better than others. But my point is, he did not just say, you know what, that's what most people doing. That's I have to be basically like them, he challenged himself and go and explore other ideas. The answer,
sometimes to many of our problems, are often available, after we learn from others, other people, other culture, other places. That's why it's so important for the Muslim community to open its arm to open its mind doors to learn from the experience of so many people before us. We don't think our community is the only one who's struggling these days, with islamophobes. Now, look at the history of the Catholic. Look at the history of the Irish. Look at the history of the African American community. Look at the history of the Indian. Look at the history of the German Americans, that is Japanese Americans. There is so many to be learned from and there is very little that we do to learn
from them.
Look at the experience of Do you think we are the only community who are suffering from drugs with our kids? We are the only community who's suffering from basically people leaving religion to atheism? Do you think we are the one who struggled with private Islamic schools go and learn how many of us have learned the one of the best school in the country or the Catholic schools and their struggle through centuries through a decade until the belt one of what's considered the most recognizable private schools in the country.
One of the things about Martin Luther King also I would like to point out today,
that something in your way, sometimes you have to go around instead of through.
That's a very interesting methods that he demonstrated in his life. So many times we think confrontation and going through things is the only way to deal with it. Sometimes you can be smart, you can go around things.
We all know that the cornerstone of Dr. King's approach to civil rights struggle was non violent civil disobedience. But what that really means disobedience and civil disobedience, or a non violent civil disobedience.
You know, we all know the story of Rosa Park. Rosa Park, give you an example, when she refused to stand up in the bus and Montgomery in which she was arrested because she refused to go to the back of the bus because that were black people supposed to be riding. Can you imagine the arrest of that mom, a woman led to a whole entire movement, all entire social change in the country.
How
Time and pressure.
It was the result of what's known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
So what Martin Luther King decide, going out to everybody in america African American community. And he said, if this has happened to us, we going to buy cart. They're basically the bus system. And guess what? This, this is a community collective work, they start going to all their members, everybody has a car, he will do a carpool. He will pick up people from their home to their work, and you do need to ride the bus. He went to every African American who ride a taxi, they made a deal with them, that they charge African American, the same rate of the bus.
So by putting that pressure on the basically, on the administration of the transportation system that time and after what, 385 consecutive days, African American community there did not ride a single bus.
That would lead to a big problem.
The boycott took over a year, but it was very effective. That is 1956 the federal district court decision to desegregated Alabama's bus system it didn't happen because oh now we are not racist or now we love black. No, because it hurts them.
Because the the felt the impact of it.
People always take advantage of you. When you don't stand up for your right. When you don't realize the amount of power that you have.
The choice that you make every day make an impact on life.
So what I'm saying is, this methods of do don't need every time to go through things, to go round things and being basically list
confronting with people it really helped.
He is of many examples like that.
When faced with
embellishments, either you will stand firm.
And you basically move forward or you quit. That's a decision that you have to make. Dr. King's and people like him Don't quit.
He was arrested maybe 20 times. His home was bombed and burned. His life and family's family's life put in danger so many times.
He found himself the tea's always against this a strong current and high tide of opposition. But he never gave up. He stood fast and then he in numb and muscle mass over soda cannabis or sell them the products or sell them sell it correctly. Nasir victory comes with patient
with patience.
So
he, Dr. King, and I just want to move quickly when he was arrested after
that is a church was bombed by a group of fanatics of black church and girls were killed. So the community started decided to go for a non violent demonstrations. And that led to a very * confrontation with the police. And we all know somebody hitting the Justice Department today kind of linked to that story.
Witness, but you can ask which side he was in,
unfortunately. So anyway, that non violence demonstration was faced with a violent reaction from the police force. People were beaten. And he find out that the only way to stop this brutal attack and his Darfur community to submit himself to arrest and he was arrested.
Did you think when he was in that very solitary or confined solidarity cell that night, harsh night that make him give up? No. Actually, that night, was followed by another Nine Nights. He wrote his famous letter, basically from jail letter from Birmingham Jail, and I will advise you to Google that letter from Birmingham Jail. He wrote in this letter so many things, words, that became an inspiring words for people around the world. I'm sure you heard justice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere. That's something he wrote that day. That moment did not make him back
did not make him quiet. He actually dig his heel. And
that's so important lessons in life, the more things became more difficult and challenging, I can guarantee you, that's the moment of relief coming up. Soon. It just you have to have this trust in Allah subhana wa Tada, Anna,
you have to have that faith in Allah subhana wa Tada.
And that's another thing
about this man, that you have this faith, strong faith. Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase. That's something Martin Luther King said. And that's something I want to say it's missing today. So many of the people who are so active in civil rights and active on in this area, they don't add, sometimes we feel that that is a kind of undermining the role of faith in the society in the community. And that's something I don't agree with.
I think faith should go hand to hand with freedom with justice. Faith should not be left to be the identity of the racist.
Or faith should not be associated with the people who apply injustice, who didn't know what's freedom is faith and believe should promote justice should promote fairness should promote freedom that works really faithfully to and to let some people to hijack what faith is meant to be. It should not be allowed and tolerated.
Like the way we stand against those who use faith to justify terrorism, we should also stand against those who use faith to justify injustice and intolerance and discrimination racism.
I asked the last panel to Allah to make us among those who stands for justice. poorer mathematical structural law Do you
Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Nabi abajo Oba
there is a famous quote, I would like to end my speech with from this great man, he said,
darkness cannot drive out darkness.
darknesses cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that.
Hate, cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.
You know, for us.
Goals never justify the means.
Goals never justify the means. That's a dirty politics. And
anyone who used that methods, that's not something worth respect.
If you want to go on walk in any, as a very famous quote, says Padawan said it. He said, it will always be recognized. When you walk into a beautiful garden with a muddy feet,
you will just ruin the garden with your footsteps with this mugs and all over the garden. You can choose a broad methods to achieve right goal or noble goals.
We cannot allow ourselves to lose our values in the pursuit of justice and the procedure of what is right and what is correct. We should not allow this to happen.
In we should maintain our principles. And we live by them. Because I think in the end of the day that was really going to make us win.
Because if you don't have something, as he said once, if you don't have something that it's worth living for, or to die for, you don't deserve to live or something around that meaning, which is very true. The moment we lose our principle, the moment we lose, you know our moral compass the moment we lose this battle.
It shows you that really love is more powerful than hate. Light is more powerful than darknesses.
So we make sure that this is a method that will never be forgotten.
And also, Martin Luther King is not the only man in the civil rights movement.
Yes, he is a shining star in the movement in the 60s in the civil rights movements in the 60s.
But he's not the only one. He was never alone in his struggle.
He was surrounded with a lot of allies with a lot of friends. A lot of people that you reach out to people he compromise even to when to reach out. He has people from different churches, different backgrounds, different religions, the Jewish community, a Catholic, many different groups of people, basically join him. We know that Tao has basically softened his message out of respect to President Jeff Kennedy, to get the support. So we know that he was very smart in building allies and his wife.
And having allies is so important. No man is an island.
You have to be basically to have friend to succeed. And this is something that is so important for us as a community today, I maybe I started with an end with because of the importance of it is so important to build allies, and to have friends. But I want to tell you something brothers and sisters,
and this is the only thing you remember from my talk today, I'm happy.
You have to make your friends before you need them.
You have to make your friends before you need them. You cannot make friends in the time when they need when you need them. You have to build friendship
first, so when the time comes when they need your friends, you will find them there for you.
And in the time we don't find them there. We know that they are not friends.
But that's an important method. Many of us we are waiting for people to use for the disaster to come then we look for friends but where's the friends we built?
How are we going to have friends? How are we going to have people even care for us if they're not our friends? They're not close to us. And you can apply this in the politics level, to the family relations
to your feet, your relationship with your family and your your friends around you and all aspects of life.
I ask Allah subhana wa tada to grant us success in the dunya and the alpha and to forgive our sins and to shower us with His mercy and to protect us and protect our community, our society, our country, and to free us from all evilness Allahumma, Leuven. Amina nifa Maria will get the bulk Leanna la mina Oh, the becoming CEO of La Casa you know to becoming a property will ILA know to become increasingly shorter in yada yada yada. Do come in and hire rapidly here are jinhua Jenny madam let me know man I'm not a llama so bad NFV misty Dena ha though. Nina, suburban Saba waratah dilation occurred then cut lahoma in a circle Huda what our Alfa Lena
Tina was watching our blood I mean as well as you know debris Yeah, Tina kurata you worked in our home Sharon Phaeton imahara mean how am I baton? Allah homophone limo Tana or motor muslimeen aloha morpholine Nino and mean out here in Houma. mewat aloha Mr. Murphy I thought it was a winner of Article a bad it was in a bad attic with eco shakalaka you Allahumma salli ala Muhammad Muhammad Ali Mohammed Camus Allah tala Ibrahim Ali Hakuna Satya hungama