Dr King’s call for moral clarity still urgent

IN AN AGE OF CORRUPTION

- ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS

AMERICAN civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr, born January 15, 1929, was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. As voters face empty promises and slogans, his moral clarity endures today, says the writer.

(United States Information Service)

WE ARE living through a crisis of moral clarity, and it is playing out in real time across today’s political landscape.

As another election cycle unfolds, voters are bombarded with slogans, outrage, and promises of reform, yet corruption remains stubbornly intact. Conviction has been replaced by convenience. Principle has yielded to expediency. And too many Americans have come to believe dangerously that corruption is simply the price of leadership. It is not.

Good can exist without evil, but evil cannot exist without good. Truth can exist without lies, but lies cannot exist without corrupting truth. These are not abstract philosophical ideas. They explain why institutions either endure or decay. What we are witnessing today is not merely partisan dysfunction or policy disagreement, but the erosion of moral leadership itself.

Good is self-sustaining. It creates trust, stability, and long-term value. It strengthens families, builds credible institutions, and fosters prosperity that lasts beyond a single term or quarterly report. Evil, by contrast, creates nothing. It cannot innovate or sustain itself. It survives only by feeding on what is good by exploiting trust, distorting truth, and weakening the moral guardrails that hold society together.