One of the most compelling incidents that have appeared on television in recent years took place during the memorial services for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A large number of individuals, both black and white, had joined hands and were singing the familiar words of the theme song of the civil rights movement in the United States, "We shall overcome!" As I watched, I was struck by the two words, "we" and "overcome." Until that moment I had always associated this song strictly with black people and their struggle for freedom and social justice.
I suddenly saw that the civil rights movement was simply another facet of the struggle of all mankind to overcome something even more basic than racial injustice and inharmony. These are but effects of the deeper error that divides and enslaves all mankind: the belief that man is a physical being who has a wholly material history and is the victim of a material environment.
