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It was when the magnificent film “A Man for All Seasons” about the great Renaissance humanist Sir Thomas More won the Academy Award for Best Picture on April 10, 1967, just six days after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his nation-shattering speech at Riverside Church linking civil rights and the Vietnam War that I lumped them together as “men for all seasons”?
More was beheaded for not confirming the oath of Henry VIII. King would be assassinated a year after his speech for his advocacy of civil rights. The 18-year-old was struck by seeing them as martyrs for resisting unjust political demands and for social and racial justice. At 78, they still inspire me.
Yes, I know about their “dark sides” – More’s approval of the execution of some heretics and King’s approval of adultery and other shortcomings.
But wait! Perhaps it is the very fact that they were flawed that encourages us not to let our own faults limit our testimony.
They are no less an example of courage in resistance to conflicts of conscience and respect for justice. More could look the other way; King didn’t have to keep talking about race and Vietnam. They drew from their spiritual centers from a well…it was costly.
So what can inspire us for Martin Luther King Day 2026?
The final paragraph of Jonathan Eig’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The King: A Life” reads:
“Where do we go from here? Despite how America treated him, King still had faith when he asked that question. Today, his words might help us through these troubled times, but only if we truly read them; only if we accept a complicated king, a flawed king, a human king, a radical king; only if we see him again and hear him clearly as America has seen and heard him once before.”
“Our very survival, he wrote, depends on our ability to stay awake, adapt to new ideas, remain alert, and meet the challenge of change.” Amen.
Dave Pasinski is an active participant in two religious congregations and local affairs.
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