Artist Brett Cook does a mural installation in Harlem honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. – AHIMSA
127th Street and 8th Avenue, Harlem New York, January 2003
(from 2003)
Project Description: Martin Luther King Jr. – AHIMSA is a project to educate us all about Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and inspire us to be better. Images of Dr. King wrongfully arrested and manhandled, struck on the right temple with a rock, stabbed with a seven-inch letter opener in the chest, and lying on the Hotel balcony after being shot are juxtaposed to quotations he made against racism, materialism, militarism, and violence. The juxtaposition of these violent episodes with his words of peace evidence the extraordinary commitment Dr. King had to non-violence, providing an impetus for us who live in this time of violence.
Ultimately this project is an effort to highlight philosophies that magnify peace in the world. In spite of a global movement towards war, this project highlights reasoning for living in peace. In spite of media control that restricts what information can be transmitted, this project is a non-permissional action to expand information available to the mainstream. And in spite of the trivialization of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and holiday in America, this project immortalizes an African American who was a hero for all of humanity.
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From “Beyond Vietnam,” Address
Riverside Church, April 4, 1967, New York City
“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit.
You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”