We can put millions of America's idle young people to work helping to repair and restore America's deteriorating infrastructure, public utilities, and transportation systems. Nothing would revitalize the nation's sagging economy more than such a commitment.

In addition to a stronger focus on better training for law enforcement, America urgently needs programs to provide jobs and educational opportunities in economically depressed communities.

Police departments across the nation must develop nonviolent 'rules of engagement,' so that they don't reflexively respond to suspected crimes with violence. This will require more in-depth training in the behavioral psychology of conflict resolution so police have tried-and-true techniques of preventing and de-escalating violence.

It is time for humanity to reset our spiritual compass from self-centeredness to other-centeredness.

We must rediscover our faith in the future and join with one another to ensure that nonviolence is the prevalent choice for government, law enforcement, the non-profit sector, business, education, media, entertainment, arts, and for the global citizenry.

Consider all of the possibilities for positive global progress if we utilized nonviolence as the central value of our culture, encompassing our law enforcement and labor practices, which currently include people in numerous nations working for inhumane wages in unhealthy conditions.

Like my father, I believe that nonviolence is the antidote to what he called 'the triple evils of racism, poverty and militarism.' These three evils were consuming our hopes for community in 1964, and, fifty years later, we remain divided because of their festering effects.

Seek out your brothers and sisters of other cultures and join together in building alliances to put an end to all forms of racial discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice. There are people of good will of all races, religions, and nations who will join you in common quest for the betterment of society.

Continue to speak out against all forms of injustice to yourselves and others, and you will set a mighty example for your children and for future generations.

Refuse to be disheartened, discouraged, distracted from your goals in life.

You will encounter misguided people from time to time. That's part of life. The challenge is to educate them when you can, but always to keep your dignity and self-respect and persevere in your personal growth and development.

Nonviolence will empower and equip us to bring generations to the table and fuse our knowledge, gifts, and zeal together.

Nonviolence as a lifestyle and perpetual strategy will allow us to be on the offense instead of continually on the defense. We will be able to move the ball down the field with team decisions and playmaking versus constantly thinking about how the opposing forces are moving the ball.

Somehow, we have to realize that what we watch and what we listen to not only often reflects our most violent tendencies but cultivates more violence.

Environmental injustice is a tangible, intolerable example of an exhibited moral laxity and minimal concern for healthy standards by corporations and political structures based on the race, ethnicity, and class of those being impacted.

Among her many accomplishments, my mother is often identified as the leader of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday movement.

In 1985, I joined my mother in a protest against apartheid in which we were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. And she was at President-elect Mandela's side in Johannesburg when he claimed victory in South Africa's first free elections.

My mother was the strong wife, partner, and co-worker Martin Luther King, Jr. needed to be an effective leader, and he said so on many occasions.

My mother made countless sacrifices so that her children - and all children - could grow up in a better nation and world.

Before she was a King, my mother was a peace advocate, a courageous leader, and an accomplished artist.

With The King Center as her base, my mother pressed on to fulfill a role that changed lives and legislation. She was a woman who refused to surrender the reigns of what she knew to be her assignment, even when male civil rights and business leaders tried to convince her that she should leave the work of building her husband's legacy to them.

Before my mother was a King, she was a gifted vocalist and musician, whose skill and academia garnered her a scholarship to the prestigious New England Conservatory for Music in Boston.

Before my mother was a King, she climbed trees and wrestled with boys. And won. Even as a child, Coretta Scott demonstrated that her gender would not deter her success, nor did it detract from her strength.

We are faced with the dilemma of how or if we demonstrate where we stand on critical issues and corresponding social ills. We are also bombarded with so many instances of inhumanity that it can be difficult to determine what part we play in human progress.