The Courage of Martin Luther King

I received an email from Jonna, who had downloaded a list of character traits from my website. I had asked people who downloaded the list to let me know why they did so what they planned to do with it. Jonna was gracious enough to reply that she had been looking for information about the courage of Martin Luther King.

Her email cause me to start thinking about what character traits Dr. King had that led him to respond to his life situations as he did. What was the combination of character traits that he demonstrated and that we call “Courage”?

I think that there are several character traits that combine together to make Dr. King courageous.

Boldness because he was confident that what he had to say and what he was doing was right, true, and just.

Decisiveness – he certainly had to make difficult decisions.

Determination, because he kept trying to accomplish his goals regardless of opposition.

He had the Endurance keep on despite what must have been tremendous inward stress.

He certainly had Faith that what he was doing would lead to the right outcome.

Justice was a strong character trait, because he certainly took personal responsibility to uphold what was pure, right, and true.

I think Self-Control was also a big part of his courage. He may have had strong desires to give up and to not put himself in such positions of opposition and danger, but he chose instead to do what was right.

Dr. King certainly had many other positive character traits, but courage was definitely one of them.

Wisdom was certainly a trait that characterized Rev. King’s life. He, more than almost any other person we could name, saw and responded to his life situations from a perspective that transcended his own circumstances.