By John L.S. Simpkins, republished with permission  |  In what would be his final speech as the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King Jr., spoke of sin, addiction and redemption. After rattling off a litany of the preceding year’s programmatic achievements, including effective economic boycotts led by a young Jesse Jackson and what would come to be known as Rainbow PUSH, King shifted gears.

“And if you will let me be a preacher just a little bit,” King importuned as he shifted from organization man to man of the cloth. He then told the story of Nicodemus, the Pharisee who asks Jesus how he could be saved through a dialogue about the meaning of being “born again” or, as the Greek translation would read, “born from above.”

“Jesus didn’t get bogged down on the kind of isolated approach of what you shouldn’t do,” King explained. “Jesus didn’t say, ‘Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying.’ He didn’t say, ‘Nicodemus, you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively.’