American Minute with Bill Federer “Let us not…satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” -Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born JANUARY 15, 1929. In 1983, Republican President Ronald Reagan signed the bill to make the 3rd Monday in January a holiday in honor of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Baptist minister like his father and grandfather. He was pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964. On April 16, 1963, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote: “As the Apostle Paul carried the gospel of Jesus Christ…so am I compelled to carry the gospel…” King continued: “One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage.” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, were influenced by the German church leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who resisted Hitler’s National Socialist Workers’ Party. Bonhoeffer was himself influenced by the Black preacher, Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, once the largest Protestant church in America. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was also influenced by Henry David Thoreau, who wrote in his book, In Civil Disobedience (1849): “That government is best which governs least” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., attended Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, 1942-44. Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and wrote in Up From Slavery (1901): “I resolved that I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. With God’s help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race… I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.” Get the booklet Booker T. Washington – American Hero Booker T. Washington stated: “In the sight of God there is no color line, and we want to cultivate a spirit that will make us forget that there is such a line anyway…” “I have always had the greatest respect for the work of the Salvation Army especially because I have noted that it draws no color line in religion.” Booker T. Washington wrote in Up From Slavery (1901): “There is a class of race problem solvers who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public… Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances because they do not want to lose their jobs… They don’t want the patient to get well… Great men cultivate love…only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.” George Washington Carver-His Life and Faith in His Own Words A professor at Tuskegee was the world renown George Washington Carver, who wrote to Robert Johnson, March 24, 1925: “Thank God I love humanity; complexion doesn’t interest me one single bit.” George W. Carver wrote to YMCA official Jack Boyd in Denver, March 1, 1927: “Keep your hand in that of the Master, walk daily by His side, so that you may lead others into the realms of true happiness, where a religion of hate, (which poisons both body and soul) will be unknown, having in its place the ‘Golden Rule’ way, which is the ‘Jesus Way’ of life, will reign supreme.” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was influenced by the non-violent methods of India’s Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi wrote in his autobiography of an incident on a ship with 800 passengers traveling from India to the Natal Province of South Africa. When some passengers learned that Gandhi was aboard, they grew furious. As Gandhi was disembarking, they punched him, kicked him, and threw stones at him, but he refused to retaliate and kept walking. He was finally rescued when the wife of the town’s police superintendent opened her parasol and stood between Gandhi and the mob. Gandhi wrote: “I hope God will give me the courage and the sense to forgive them and to refrain from bringing them to law. I have no anger against them. I am only sorry for their ignorance and their narrowness. I know that they sincerely believe that what they are doing today is right and proper. I have no reason therefore to be angry with them.” On March 6, 1984, President Ronald Reagan remarked at the annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, meeting at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Columbus, Ohio: “During the civil rights struggles of the fifties and early sixties, millions worked for equality in the name of their Creator. Civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King based all their efforts on the claim that black or white, each of us is a child of God. And they stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul.” On January 20, 1997, Rev. Billy Graham delivered the invocation just prior to the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton, stating: “Oh, Lord, help us to be reconciled first to you and secondly to each other. May Dr. Martin Luther King‘s dream finally come true for all of us. Help us to learn our courtesy to our fellow countrymen, that comes from the one who taught us that ‘whatever you want me to do to you, do also to them.’ In proclaiming 1990 the International Year of Bible Reading, President George H.W. Bush stated: “The historic speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., provide compelling evidence of the role Scripture played in shaping the struggle against slavery and discrimination.” On February 16, 2002, Dr. James Dobson addressed 3,500 attendees at the National Religious Broadcaster’s convention: “Those of you who do feel that the church has no responsibility in the cultural area… Suppose it were…1963, and Martin Luther King is sitting in a Birmingham jail and he is released. And he goes to a church, yes, a church. And from that church, he comes out into the streets of Birmingham and marches for civil rights. Do you oppose that? Is that a violation of the separation of church and state?” In his address at Montgomery, Alabama, December 31, 1955, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., declared: “If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, ‘There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.'” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said August 28, 1963: “Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children… In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.” On April 16, 1963, Rev. King wrote: “I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers… I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency… The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement… This movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible ‘devil.’ I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the ‘do-nothingism’ of the complacent nor the hatred of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and non-violent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of non-violence became an integral part of our struggle.” Rev. King proclaimed August 28, 1963: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood… I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character… I have a dream…where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.”  American Minute is a registered trademark. 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Pray for our President and leaders. Pray for America .

American Minute with Bill Federer
“THE GREATEST REVOLUTION that has ever taken place IN THE WORLD’S HISTORY” -Reagan

38-year-old King George III ruled the largest empire that planet earth had ever seen.

The Declaration of Independence, approved JULY 4, 1776, listed the reasons why Americans declared their independence from the King:

“He has made judges dependent on his will alone…

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies…

To subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution…

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us…

For imposing taxes on us without our consent…

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury…

For…establishing…an arbitrary government…

For…altering fundamentally the forms of our governments…

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny…

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions…”

33-year-old Thomas Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration contained a line condemning slavery:

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself…in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither…

suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold.”

A few delegates objected, and since the Declaration needed to pass unanimously and time was running short with the British invading New York, the line condemning slavery was unfortunately omitted.

John Hancock, the 39-year-old President of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration first, reportedly saying “the price on my head has just doubled.”

Next to sign was Secretary, Charles Thomson, age 47.

70-year-old Benjamin Franklin said:

“We must hang together or most assuredly we shall hang separately.

The Declaration referred to God:

“Laws of Nature and of NATURE’S GOD…

All Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights…

Appealing to the SUPREME JUDGE OF THE WORLD for the rectitude of our intentions…”

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Get the book America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations

Many of the 56 signers sacrificed their prosperity for their posterity.

Of the Signers:

11 had their homes destroyed;
5 were hunted and captured;
17 served in the military; and
9 died during the war.

27-year-old George Walton signed, and at the Battle of Savannah was wounded and captured.

Signers Edward Rutledge, age 27, Thomas Heyward, Jr., age 30, and Arthur Middleton, age 34, were made prisoners at the Siege of Charleston.

38-year-old signer Thomas Nelson had his home used as British headquarters during the siege of Yorktown. Nelson reportedly offered five guineas to the first man to hit his house.

Signer Carter Braxton, age 40, lost his fortune during the war.

42-year-old signer Thomas McKean wrote that he was “hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove my family five times in three month.”

46-year-old Richard Stockton signed and was dragged from his bed at night and jailed.

50-year-old signer Lewis Morris had his home taken and used as a barracks.

50-year-old signer Abraham Clark had two sons tortured and imprisoned on the British starving ship Jersey.

More Americans died on British starving ships than died in battle during the Revolution.

53-year-old signer John Witherspoon’s son, James, was killed in the Battle of Germantown.

60-year-old signer Philip Livingston lost several properties to British occupation and died before the war ended.

63-year-old signer Francis Lewis had his wife imprisoned and treated so harshly, she died shortly after her release.

65-year-old signer John Hart had his home looted and had to remain in hiding, dying before the war ended.

41-year-old John Adams wrote to his wife of the Declaration:

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary Festival.

It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by SOLEMN ACTS OF DEVOTION TO GOD ALMIGHTY.

It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”

Gustave de Beaumont, a contemporary of Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote in Marie ou L’Esclavage aux E’tas-Unis, 1835:

“I have seen a meeting of the Senate in Washington open with a prayer, and the anniversary festival of the Declaration of Independence consists, in the United States, of an entirely religious ceremony.”

John Adams continued in his letter to his wife:

“You will think me transported with enthusiasm but I am not.

I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.

Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means.

And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

When 54-year-old Samuel Adams signed the Declaration, he said:

“We have this day restored THE SOVEREIGN to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.”

34-year-old James Wilson signed the Declaration. He later signed the Constitution and was appointed to Supreme Court by George Washington. James Wilson stated in 1787:

“After a period of 6,000 years since creation, the United States exhibit to the world THE FIRST INSTANCE of a nation…assembling voluntarily…and deciding…that system of government under which they and their posterity should live.”

Senator Daniel Webster stated in 1802:

“Miracles do not cluster, and what has HAPPENED ONCE IN 6,000 YEARS, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”

John Jay was President of the Continental Congress, 1778-1779, and later nominated by George Washington to be the First Chief Justice of Supreme Court. John Jay wrote in 1777:

“The Americans are THE FIRST PEOPLE whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of…choosing the forms of government under which they should live. All other constitutions have derived their existence from violence or accidental circumstances.”

America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations

Yale President Ezra Stiles, 1788:

“All the forms of civil polity have been tried by mankind, except one: and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America.”

At the time of the Revolutionary War, nearly every other country on Earth was ruled by a king.

Dr. Pat Robertson wrote in America’s Dates with Destiny, 1986:

“On September 17, 1787, the day our Constitution was signed, the absolute monarch Ch’ien Lung, emperor of the Manchu (or Ch’ing) Dynasty, reigned supreme over the people of China…Revolts were put down by ruthless military force.

In Japan the shogun (warriors) of the corrupt Tokugawa chamberlain Tanuma Okitsugu exercised corrupt and totalitarian authority over the Japanese.

In India, Warren Hastings, the British Governor of Bengal, had successfully defeated the influence of the fragmented Mogul dynasties that ruled India since 1600.

Catherine II was the enlightened despot of all the Russias.

Joseph II was the emperor of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary.

For almost half a century, Frederick the Great had ruled Prussia.

Louis XVI sat uneasily on his throne in France just years away from revolution, a bloody experiment in democracy, and the new tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte.

A kind of a constitutional government had been created in the Netherlands in 1579 by the Protestant Union of Utrecht, but that constitution was really a loose federation of the northern provinces for a defense against Catholic Spain…

What was happening in America had no real precedent, even as far back as the city-states of Greece.

The only real precedent was established thousands of years before by the tribes of Israel in the covenant with God and with each other.”

President Theodore Roosevelt stated in 1903:

“In NO other place and at NO other time has the experiment of government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE, been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country.”

President Calvin Coolidge stated in 1924:

“The history of government on this earth has been almost entirely…rule of force held in the HANDS OF A FEW. Under our Constitution, America committed itself to power in the HANDS OF THE PEOPLE.”

America is a republic where THE PEOPLE get to rule themselves. If an American disrespects the flag, what that person is in effect saying is that they no longer want to be king. They want someone else to rule their life – which is the definition of slavery.

Ronald Reagan opened the Ashbrook Center, Ashland, Ohio, May 9, 1983:

“From their own harsh experience with intrusive, overbearing government, the Founding Fathers made a great breakthrough in political understanding:

They understood that it is the excesses of government, the will to power of one man over another, that has been a principle source of injustice and human suffering through the ages.

The Founding Fathers understood that only by MAKING GOVERNMENT THE SERVANT, not the master, only by positing SOVEREIGNTY in THE PEOPLE and not the state can we hope to protect freedom and see the political commonwealth prosper.

In 1776 the source of government excess was the crown’s abuse of power and its attempt to suffocate the colonists with its overbearing demands. In our own day, the danger of too much state power has taken a subtler but no less dangerous form.”

John Adams wrote in his notes on A Dissertation on Canon & Feudal Law, 1765:

“I always consider the settlement of America…as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for…the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”

Franklin Roosevelt stated in 1939:

“Rulers…increase their power over the common men. The seamen they sent to find gold found instead the way of escape for the common man from those rulers…

What they found over the Western horizon was not the silk and jewels of Cathay…but MANKIND’S SECOND CHANCE – a chance to create a new world after he had almost spoiled an old one…

The Almighty seems purposefully to have withheld that SECOND CHANCE until the time when men would most need and appreciate liberty.”

Ronald Reagan stated 1961:

“In this country of ours took place THE GREATEST REVOLUTION that has ever taken place IN THE WORLD’S HISTORY – Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another…

Here for THE FIRST TIME in all the THOUSANDS OF YEARS of man’s relation to man…the founding fathers established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the GOD-GIVEN RIGHT AND ABILITY to DETERMINE OUR OWN DESTINY.”

British Edwardian writer G.K. Chesterton stated in “What is America”:

“America is the ONLY NATION IN THE WORLD that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth…in the Declaration of Independence..

that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice…

It certainly does condemn…atheism, since it clearly names the CREATOR as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived.”

Calvin Coolidge stated July 5, 1926:

“THE PRINCIPLES…which went into the Declaration of Independence… are found in… THE SERMONS… of the early colonial clergy…

They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the Divine image.”

Henry Cabot Lodge, who filled the role of the first Senate Majority Leader, warned the U.S. Senate in 1919:

“The United States is the world’s best hope… Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance… for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.”

America’s God and Country

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On June 14, Americans celebrate the adoption of the first national flag. Also known as the “Stars and Stripes” or “Old Glory,” the first American flag was approved by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. In 1818, after 5 more states joined the Union, Congress passed legislation fixing the number of stripes at 13 and requiring that the number of stars equal the number of states.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed Flag Day with these words:

Two years after the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Continental Congress chose a flag which, tellingly, expressed the unity and resolve of the patriots who had banded together to seek independence. The delegates voted “that the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.”

Two centuries later, with the addition of thirty-seven stars, this flag still symbolizes our shared commitment to freedom and equality. It carriers a message of hope to the downtrodden, opportunity to the oppressed, and peace to all mankind.

As challenges face our Nation today, the “Stars and Stripes” continues to remind each of us of the sacrifices and determination which built this Nation. It signals the great land of opportunity that our forefathers carved out of the wilderness and gave their lives to make free so many years ago.

Now it is our responsibility to remember the great price that has been paid to keep our flag flying free today and our privilege to ensure that it will keep flying free for future generations.

Chester Nez the last surviving member of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers has passed away . The  Navajo Code Talkers developed a code that was used to communicate with American Forces during the war in the Pacific with the Japanese Empire .  It was instrumental in quickening the wars end , saving countless lives.

 

The language itself was almost completely taken away from the Navajo as it was policy for all native languages in this country . US Government Policy once was to force Natives to give up cultural traditions and language . Forcing children to attend schools away from their homes , this was policy of the United Government and religious groups participated . Ironically the same language attempted to be stripped away was used to fight in our war against fascism and totalitarianism.

 

The 29 code talkers returned home to their reservation after the war  with little or no recognition for their contributions .

 Chester Nez and four other code walkers finally  received medals in 2001 .

 

Have often seen the sins of our nation become so emphasized we forget the patriotism and love of freedom that has allowed this country to flourish and become a beacon for freedom and rights .  Well meaning or some with political aspirations use it as a mechanism to divide not unite .    These men  stepped up to plate as true patriots, using the language they hid secretly among themselves ,  helped us quicken the end of war in the Pacific . They saved American lives . As so many Americans have throughout our history , from different walks of life , religions , cultures, and races .

 

God Bless America and today we thank all those veterans and their families who have allowed the time to move forward in this great nation .

 

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/2014/06/04/arizona-navajo-code-talker-dies-nez/9965201/

Christmas brings out the best in many of us . Please consider using your discernment and be diligent in who you choose to support .