A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of my close friend’s second parent died. In offering my condolences, I said, “I understand,” to which my friend exclaimed in his grief, “No…you don’t” (both of my parents still living). My friend was correct, and I learned to be more careful in trying to express empathy, irrespective of my good intentions. [1]

Like many others, by nature, I am a Caucasian, XY-male, heterosexual. And, by nurture, like many others, I am completely of formal Catholic school education. [2]

I do not know what it means to be a person of color, an XX-woman, an LGB++, or Jewish. Truth be told, I don’t really understand what it is to be something I am not, something I could not be, something I have not experienced, or something against my own nature or conscience.

Empathy is incompetent to share what has no framework of reference; it can only try by good intention, but it is without the capacity to fulfill. [3, 4] To profess complete empathy for a person without a frame of reference is a form of delusion. Mary Lathrap said it as, “walking in another person’s moccasins”:

“Pray, don’t find fault with the man that limps, Or stumbles along the road. Unless you have worn the moccasins he wears, Or stumbled beneath the same load. … Don’t sneer at the man who is down today, Unless you have felt the same blow, That caused his fall or felt the shame, That only the fallen know.”

And Master Aesop had a wonderfully insightful fable on the point, although perhaps focused more in the judgment of one to another; to wit [*3]:

The Sheep chided the Pig for his squealing when the farmer came to take him, vainly professing their own quiet bravery when the farmer comes for them. The Pig retorted that the farmer comes for their wool, but the farmer comes for his bacon.


In many of my posts, I have referenced the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17] He is one of my paragons. For all that I am, and for all that I might aspire to be, his quality as an elevated human being humbles me, and I concede that he is my superior. Just a man, of course, but a great man.

As much as I might try to understand what it would be like to be a “separate but equal” segregated person of color in 1960 in the “and justice for all” United States of America, I can’t even get close to it, by failure of capacity. I can only try by good intention.

The hypocrisy of America is daunting, if not this, then that. [*17, 18]

Now, truth be told, over the many years of my life, I have heard at least a few people say something to the effect that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is some form of a “lesser” national holiday or perhaps some form of a pander to a vocal minority group. I disagree.

Martin Luther King, Jr. earned his place as a pivotal cultural leader. He arose exactly at the moment of his necessity, fit to serve for his time, but not constrained to it. [*15] Moreover, he earned his place through non-militant protest and with fervor for a cause, yet without hate. [*5] He modeled himself after his own paragons, Jesus and Gandhi; to wit:

“The trip had a great impact upon me personally. It was wonderful to be in Gandhi’s land, to talk with his son, his grandsons, his cousin and other relatives; to share the reminiscences of his close comrades; to visit his ashrama, to see the countless memorials for him and finally to lay a wreath on his entombed ashes at Rajghat. I left India more convinced than ever before that non-violent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom. It was a marvelous thing to see the amazing results of a non-violent campaign. The aftermath of hatred and bitterness that usually follows a violent campaign was found nowhere in India. Today a mutual friendship based on complete equality exists between the Indian and British people within the commonwealth. The way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of non-violence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.”

My Trip to the Land of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.


We should remember that the name “Martin Luther” is an inherited namesake from Martin Luther King, Jr’s father, Martin Luther King, Sr., which was changed in honor of Martin Luther, the great man who initiated the Protestant Reformation of or against the Catholic Church in 1521. [*14] The name “Martin Luther” given to the Michaels King was in honor of Martin Luther; to wit:

In 1934, an African American pastor from Georgia made the trip of a lifetime, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, through the gates of Gibraltar, and across the Mediterranean Sea to the Holy Land. After this pilgrimage, he traveled to Berlin, attending an international conference of Baptist pastors. While in Germany, this man — who was named Michael King — became so impressed with what he learned about the reformer Martin Luther that he decided to do something dramatic. He offered the ultimate tribute to the man’s memory by changing his own name to Martin Luther King. His 5-year-old son was also named Michael — and to the son’s dying day his closest relatives would still call him Mike — but not long after the boy’s father changed his own name, he decided to change his son’s name too, and Michael King Jr. became known to the world as Martin Luther King Jr.

“Michael King” thereby became “Martin Luther King.” The importance of Martin Luther as the source of the name change is set forth thusly:

For example, the quintessentially modern idea of the individual — and of one’s personal responsibility before one’s self and God rather than before any institution, whether church or state — was as unthinkable before Luther as is color in a world of black and white; and the similarly modern idea of “the people,” along with the democratic impulse that proceeds from it, was created — or at least given a voice — by Luther too. And the more recent ideas of pluralism, religious liberty, and self-government all entered history through the door that Luther opened to the future in which we now live.

Time, Why Martin Luther King Changed His Name to Honor the Original Martin Luther

The Protestant Reformation is usually considered to have started on October 31, 1517 with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses, authored by Martin Luther, which challenged the practices of Catholicism. Over three years later, on January 3, 1521, Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X. On May 25, 1521, at the Diet of Worms, Luther was condemned by the Holy Roman Empire, which officially banned citizens from defending or propagating Luther’s ideas. Luther survived after being declared an outlaw due to the protection of Elector Frederick the Wise. [*14]

Martin Luther is quoted thusly as saying, at the 1519 Liepzig Debates, challenging any man’s appointed or elected circuitous intercession between any human being’s conscience and god; to wit:

“I will tell you what I think. I have the right to believe freely, to be a slave to no man’s authority, to confess what appears to me to be true whether it is proved or disapproved, whether it is spoken by Catholic or by heretic. In matters of faith, neither council nor Pope, nor any man, has power over my conscience.”

Martin Luther Clip at

the complete movie at


President Reagan signed the law for a day to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1983. Such as it is, I have begun watching at least the following video each year in remembrance of Dr. King. I have practiced law for more than 35 years, and I have read more than a few books on leadership, religion and philosophy, and I cannot appreciate more the leadership contributions of Dr. King to the American Experience. In the following video, watch for pointed fingers, use of segregating now antiquated terms, judo-pull retorts, statistics, political astuteness, and overall ease of sophistication.

There are certain people, living and dead, who humble me, and Dr. King is one of them. This video demonstrates his depth, thoughtfulness, clarity, cleverness, humility, and calmness by his truth. His retort that “I don’t think our loyalty to the country should be measured by our ability to kill,” for me, ranks up there with Jesus’s “Give to Caesar” retort. [19, *17]

And then, we have the uncanny prescience of the following speech on April 3, 1963, the day before Dr. King was shot and killed, April 4, 1963, as if he foresaw it:

Alas, I don’t know what it means to be a black man. Therefore, I am careful not to press the point too far that I believe that the Martin Luther Memorial statue is mis-presented as sculpted by the biases of Chinese sculptor, Lei Yixin.

I personally do not think Dr. King would want such a defensive and closed posture, but rather perhaps kneeling on one knee and wrapping his arms around a diverse group of children who are holding hands, while he is looking up to the heavens, tired but with some graceful satisfaction of his progress to god’s mission, and with so much more yet to be done.

But that’s just me.


Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an individual and martyr who risked and gave his life for the successful satisfaction of the American Experiment:

In the larger sense, systemic harmonious diversity is the American Experiment. Systemic harmonious diversity is the test. Yes, allowing each person freely to choose the “meaning of life” is the test. The insecure weak master always feels so noble, so good, and so very ethereally righteous, to enslave and to lord over others—by force of contriving chains, some chains forged more or less overtly than others.

[19] Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream, now more fulfilled than it was in the past, and, hopefully, less fulfilled than it will be in the future:

From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. deserves every bit of his day of remembrance and appreciation for his strength and sacrifice. What he did, why he did it, and how he did it. He is a timeless paragon for all of us. [*12]


[1] Trusting Intention and Trusting Capability [Final Episode] – No. 113. The Man and the Old Dog – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#98_113]

[2] My Experiment with Atheism; Or, Wilson Revisited [#GRZ_125]

[3] Empathy to Understanding. No. 20. The Sheep and the Pig – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_20]

[4] On Empathy: To Give Empathy Is a Blessing; To Need Empathy Is a Curse [#GRZ_106]

[5] Nothing to Hate, But Hate Itself – Or, Hate Best Practices [#GRZ_44]

[6] Sorry, Socrates. Or, The “Apology” of Socrates [#GRZ_60]

[7] Mind Control, Protests and the Goal – Stand for America® [#GRZ_64]

[8] Oliver Wendell Holmes and His Imbeciles – Stand for America® [#GRZ_71]

[9] Me, Too; Not, You. Or, the Exceptional Principle. – Stand for America® [#GRZ_83]

[10] Misery Loves Company – No. 51. The Fox Without A Tail – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_51]

[11] The Acidic Venom of Scorn – No. 62. The Serpent and the File – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [#GRZ_98_62]

[12] Who is a Hero? [#GRZ_103]

[13] The Rise of Corporate Social Intimidation (CSI); Or, Rollerball, Censorship, and Smokeless Book Burning [#GRZ_151]

[14] I Am Not Brainwashed, And Neither Are You.  Maybe.  But I Might be Wrong. [#GRZ_165]

[15] The Three Noble Cardinal Rules of Wisdom [#GRZ_189]

[16] The Woman Wins. Now. It’s About Time. [#GRZ_199]

[17] Trump v. Lincoln- The Over-Man v. The Philosopher King – Nietzsche v. Socrates – Machiavelli v. Everyone; Or, Political Philosophy 101 [#GRZ_220]

[18] Seven Key American Principles; Or, a Culture of Breaking Culture [#GRZ_197]

[19] ONE®: The LinkedIn Reference Set [#GRZ_183] ONE: 2122 [T22:20, R12:16, L20:24] (“give to Caesar“)

[20] “Forgive Them, Founding Father; They Know Not What They Do.” Or, the Folly of Trying to Socialize the Meaning of Life [#GRZ_219]

“Empathy est incompetenda communicare quod sine compage referendi est.” (“Empathy is incompetent to share what has no framework of reference.”) ~grz


© 2025 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.

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