MINING THE ROUGH ORE

MINING THE ROUGH ORE "Belief in history " is a phrase used by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1963 book, WHY WE CAN'T WAIT. That phrase's incongruity has struck me as bizarre. One does not "believe" in history any more than one believes in Santa Claus or in the tooth fairy. Such a "belief" is childish ! One must know history. This historical knowledge is easily attainable by study. The same goes for mathematics or for science or grammar, as for anything else! "Study to show thyself approved," begins the scripture, "unto God," it continues, "a workman who need not be ashamed , rightly dividing the word of truth." https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/… Dr. King was decrying the sick character, ergo quality, of the school textbooks in that city, white-supremacist, segregated Birmingham , Alabama, when he used the above phrase "belief in history." Needless to say, those who believed in that history were worst than slaves. The broader lesson for us all is that beliefs perpetuate human oppression, while committed study undermines oppression. Study reveals the sunlight of liberating knowledge to those who mine rough ore for truth.