Dear John Lewis,

In this part of March, we dive deep into Selma. Things were not very good there and it seemed that it was getting worse so people were sent there to help and protest. However, this was not easy and took much time; it was a very long and frustrating time for everyone. One thing that really captured my attention was when Martin Luther King had his first thought about ever hitting someone (or in this case the police officer) and he realized that he even has his breaking points.

This made me think a lot. You have someone like MLK who was one of the most incredible people in our history and was so peaceful and promoted only nonviolence. If someone like him had a thought about hitting someone it tells you something about how messed up it was back then. He finally hit his breaking point and it took A LOT to finally get to it. So imagine how bad it must have been. I personally could never do the things he did I would have broke and lashed out a long time ago.

It’s sad because in society today I feel like many things seem to be resolved by violence. Think about the number of wars we have gotten into. If we look closer to our societies we see people getting mad at each other and swinging punches without even thinking. Our culture and social media also make violence seem not so bad which does not help the cause either. If everyone took one step back and tried to resolve issues by nonviolence I like to think a lot more could get done. Violence does not seem to help much, it just puts one person down so the other can stand higher. Why not try to have both people stand higher even if it may be the tougher route.

All the best,

Jonathan Nooriel