I have written elsewhere about Martin Luther King’s call to martyrdom, his exhorting a crowd of black citizens in Montgomery, Alabama: “You must say, somehow, ‘I don’t have much money—I don’t have much education—I may not be able to read or write—but I have the capacity to die!” These days when we think of calls to martyrdom, we think of Muslims, suicide bombers. And we may note stark differences: King’s martyrs were not to kill but only to be killed, […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Boris Nemtsov, courage, Martin Luther King, martyrdom, N. Scott Momaday, Plenty Horses, suicide bombers, Wounded Knee