Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2025
20th January 2025 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday in the United States.
Here's my favorite TED talk by Simon Sinek:
In this talk⬆️ Simon Sinek starts talking at 15:09.
In the summer of 1963, 250,000 people showed up on the mall in Washington to hear Dr.King speak.
They sent out no invitations, and there was no website to check the date.
How do you do that?
Dr.King wasn't the only man in America who was a great orator.
He wasn't the only man in America who suffered in pre-civil rights in America.
In fact, some of his ideas were bad.
But he had a gift.
He didn't go around telling people what needed to change in America.
He went around and told people what he believed.
"I believe, I believe, I believe", he told people.
And people who believed what he believed took his cause, and they made it their own, and they told people.
...
250,000 people showed up on the right day, at the right time to hear him speak.
How many of them showed up for him?
Zero.
They showed up for themselves.
It's what they believed about America...
This is so impressive✨✨✨
Here are two excerpts from "Edge of Eternity", the last volume of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett:
"A hundred thousand people is an underestimate."
"How do you know?"
"Every scheduled bus, train, and plane to Washington today is full. At least twenty chartered trains arrived this morning... Special buses are coming through the Baltimore tunnel at the rate of one hundred per hour..."
A shot rang out.
King staggered back, threw up his arms like a man on a cross, hit the wall behind him, and fell.
I read the Century Trilogy in 2012 ~ 2015. The third volume "Edge of Eternity" exceeds 1100 pages. Those who love «Les Thibault», "Братья Карамазовы" or "Atlas Shrugged" would not be daunted by the length of novels by Ken Follett😎
Incidentally, this is a photo at the inaugural speech by JFK on 20th January 1961 (64 years ago). The "Edge of Eternity" by Ken Follett above starts from 1961.
The flag shall be flown at half-mast for the next four years (in my mind).
Header image via the following post:
https://bsky.app/profile/simonwdc.bsky.social/post/3lfnr2x765k22
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