“A piece of nonviolence”

A wonderful quote from Taylor Branch (“At Canaan’s Edge”) in today’s New York Times, adapted from a speech he just gave at the National Cathedral about Dr. Martin Luther King:

“There is no more salient or neglected field of study than the relationship between power and violence. We recoil from nonviolence at our peril. Dr. King rightly saw it at the heart of democracy. Our nation is a great cathedral of votes — votes not only for Congress and for president, but also votes on Supreme Court decisions and on countless juries. Votes govern the boards of great corporations and tiny charities alike. Visibly and invisibly, everything runs on votes. And every vote is nothing but a piece of nonviolence.”