On the 4th
June 1411 King
Charles VI, of France, granted a monopoly for the ripening of Roquefort cheese
to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon as they had been doing for centuries.
Legend has it that the
cheese was discovered when a youth, eating his lunch of bread and ewes' milk
cheese, saw a beautiful girl in the distance. Abandoning his meal in a nearby
cave, he ran to meet her. When he returned a few months later, the mold (Penecillicum roquefort) had transformed
his plain cheese into Roquefort.
Roquefort, or similar style
cheese, is mentioned in literature as far back as AD 79, when Pliny the Elder
remarked upon its rich flavour. Cheese making colanders have been discovered
amongst the region's prehistoric relics.
In 1925, the cheese was the recipient of
France's first Appellation d’Origine
Contrôlée when regulations controlling its production and naming were first
defined. In 1961, in a landmark ruling that removed imitation, the Tribunal
de Grande Instance at Millau decreed that although the method for the
manufacture of the cheese could be followed across the south of France, only
those whose ripening occurred in the natural caves of Mont Combalou in
Roquefort-sur-Soulzon were permitted to bear the name Roquefort. Roquefort
is made entirely from the milk of the Lacaune, Manech and Basco-Béarnise breeds
of sheep.
On
the 4th
June 1917 the
first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E.
Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer
for biography
(for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history
for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope
receives the first Pulitzer for journalism
for his work for the New York World.
The
Power of Non-violence
Martin Luther King, Jr.
4th June 1957
From the very beginning there was a philosophy undergirding the
Montgomery boycott, the philosophy of nonviolent resistance. There was always
the problem of getting this method over because it didn’t make sense to most of
the people in the beginning. We had to use our mass meetings to explain
nonviolence to a community of people who had never heard of the philosophy and
in many instances were not sympathetic with it. We had meetings twice a week on
Mondays and on Thursdays, and we had an institute on nonviolence and social
change. We had to make it clear that nonviolent resistance is not a method of
cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and
deadening complacency. The nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil
that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without
violence. This method is nonaggressive physically but strongly aggressive
spiritually.
NOT TO HUMILIATE BUT TO WIN OVER
Another thing that we had to get over was the fact that the nonviolent
resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his
friendship and understanding. This was always a cry that we had to set before
people that our aim is not to defeat the white community, not to humiliate the
white community, but to win the friendship of all of the persons who had
perpetrated this system in the past. The end of violence or the aftermath of
violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the
creation of a beloved community. A boycott is never an end within itself. It is
merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is
reconciliation, the end is redemption.
Then we had to make it clear also that the nonviolent resister seeks
to attack the evil system rather than individuals who happen to be caught up in
the system. And this is why I say from time to time that the struggle in the
South is not so much the tension between white people and Negro people. The
struggle is rather between justice and injustice, between the forces of light
and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will not be a victory
merely for fifty thousand Negroes. But it will be a victory for justice, a
victory for good will, a victory for democracy.
Another basic thing we had to get over is that nonviolent resistance
is also an internal matter. It not only avoids external violence or external
physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. And so at the center of
our movement stood the philosophy of love. The attitude that the only way to
ultimately change humanity and make for the society that we all long for is to
keep love at the center of our lives. Now people used to ask me from the
beginning what do you mean by love and how is it that you can tell us to love those
persons who seek to defeat us and those persons who stand against us; how can
you love such persons? And I had to make it clear all along that love in its
highest sense is not a sentimental sort of thing, not even an affectionate sort
of thing.
AGAPE LOVE
The Greek language uses three words for love. It talks about eros. Eros is a sort of aesthetic love. It has come to us to be a sort
of romantic love and it stands with all of its beauty. But when we speak of
loving those who oppose us we’re not talking about eros. The Greek language talks about philia and this is a sort of reciprocal love between personal
friends. This is a vital, valuable love. But when we talk of loving those who
oppose you and those who seek to defeat you we are not talking about eros or philia. The Greek language comes out with another word and it is
agape. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all
men. Biblical theologians would say it is the love of God working in the minds
of men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. And when you
come to love on this level you begin to love men not because they are likeable,
not because they do things that attract us, but because God loves them and here
we love the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person
does. It is the type of love that stands at the center of the movement that we
are trying to carry on in the Southland—agape.
SOME
POWER IN THE UNIVERSE THAT WORKS FOR JUSTICE
I am quite aware of the fact that there are persons who believe firmly
in nonviolence who do not believe in a personal God, but I think every person
who believes in nonviolent resistance believes somehow that the universe in
some form is on the side of justice. That there is something unfolding in the
universe whether one speaks of it as a unconscious process, or whether one
speaks of it as some unmoved mover, or whether someone speaks of it as a
personal God. There is something in the universe that unfolds for justice and
so in Montgomery we felt somehow that as we struggled we had cosmic
companionship. And this was one of the things that kept the people together,
the belief that the universe is on the side of justice.
God grant that as men and women all over the world struggle against
evil systems they will struggle with love in their hearts, with understanding
good will. Agape says you must
go on with wise restraint and calm reasonableness but you must keep moving. We
have a great opportunity in America to build here a great nation, a nation
where all men live together as brothers and respect the dignity and worth of
all human personality. We must keep moving toward that goal. I know that some
people are saying we must slow up. They are writing letters to the North and
they are appealing to white people of good will and to the Negroes saying slow
up, you’re pushing too fast. They are saying we must adopt a policy of
moderation. Now if moderation means moving on with wise restraint and calm
reasonableness, then moderation is a great virtue that all men of good will
must seek to achieve in this tense period of transition. But if moderation
means slowing up in the move for justice and capitulating to the whims and
caprices of the guardians of the deadening status quo, then moderation is a
tragic vice which all men of good will must condemn. We must continue to move
on. Our self—respect is at stake; the prestige of our nation is at stake. Civil
rights is an eternal moral issue which may well determine the destiny of our
civilization in the ideological struggle with communism. We must keep moving
with wise restraint and love and with proper discipline and dignity.
THE
NEED TO BE "MALADJUSTED"
Modern
psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the
word "maladjusted." Now we all should seek to live a well—adjusted
life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are
some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and
to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to
segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I
never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical
violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such
things. I call upon you to be as maladjusted to such things. I call upon you to
be as maladjusted as Amos who in the midst of the injustices of his day cried
out in words that echo across the generation, "Let judgment run down like
waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." As maladjusted as Abraham
Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave
and half free. As maladjusted as Jefferson, who in the midst of an age
amazingly adjusted to slavery could cry out, "All men are created equal
and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." As maladjusted as
Jesus of Nazareth who dreamed a dream of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man. God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be
able to go out and change our world and our civilization. And then we will be
able to move from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man to
the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment