I'm not at all surprised to learn that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Boy Scout, are you?
Check out the Boy Scout's blog:
http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/01/15/martin-luther-king-jr-was-a-boy-scout/
We have an excellent program, provided by volunteers, to teach character and leadership. The list of former scouts is long and impressive.
And in the 1940's the Boy Scout's was an American institution.
But if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today would he be promoting the Boy Scouts and our bigoted, homophobic policies or would he be helping us try to change them? How would he react to National's policy of concentrating on what unites us and not talking about the rest. Would he choose pragmatism over principle?
"A right delayed is a right denied."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Would he support an organization that spent millions of dollars on legal fees to keep people out? (Money that should have provided services to kids.)
I'm pretty sure he'd be helping Scouts for Equality bring scouting to every family in America.
So let us honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s memory by passing along this story about his friend and advisor:
From the US Postal Service:
The March
Early in the morning of Aug. 28, 1963, hours before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was to begin, Courtland Cox, a top official from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, walked... to the still-deserted National Mall with the chief organizer of the march, Bayard Rustin. In the quiet, as mist rose from the Reflecting Pool, Cox turned to Rustin.
"Do you think anybody's coming?"
They came. They arrived by bus, train, and car. They bicycled from Ohio, hitchhiked from Alabama, and walked from Brooklyn. One young man roller-skated from Chicago. That day, some 250,000 people joined one another in the hope and belief that change was possible...
From the White House:
President Obama names presidential medal of freedom recipients:
"Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all. An advisor to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. As an openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights."
But if he were alive today, Presidential Metal of Freedom recipient Bayard Rustin would not be considered qualified to teach the American Cultures merit badge to Boy Scouts. He wouldn't be allowed to share his stories about the 1963 March on Washington around the campfire.
Please keep the conversation going...