MLK Holiday In Brownwood/Brown County

A just holiday
January 28, 2005

In the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., Linda Lewis Parker, Brown County Tax Assessor, acted on the day of the observance of his birthday to right a wrong by closing the assessor's office to observe a holiday that is long overdue in Brown County. As a result of her actions, she was reprimanded by County Judge Ray West and was told to remedy her actions by having her office compensate for the day taken off.

If Linda was wrong, Martin Luther King Jr. was wrong. King, writing to a group of clergy, explained his obligation to violate unjust laws. He wrote in his famous Letter from a Birmingham jail, ''One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.''' It was only after King violated unjust laws that attention was given to the seriousness of the issues.

Our nation made a statement, through representative government, concerning the way the King Holiday is to be viewed. On August 21, 1983, the U.S. House of Representa-tives passed a bill creating a legal public holiday in honor of King. President Reagan signed the bill into law. Obviously, the sentiment of our representative government is that it is not just another holiday but is on par with other national holidays.

The Rev. Jesse Turner Sr.
Pastor of Little Zion Baptist Church
Brownwood

source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/op_letters_editor/article/0,1874,ABIL_7984_3504072,00.html