Today we celebrate King. Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King and his lessons that guided me over time.
I learned the meaning of moral direction not in a classroom, but during years of conflicts and the aftermath of violence. It is here, in this moral tension, that King has walked beside me.
This photo was taken in 2016 during my visit to the Martin Luther King Memorial in DC
For me, King’s greatest gift to the world was not strategy or rhetoric, but a compass, that compassionate spirit for all humanity—one that insists that change must be guided by dignity, restraint, and hope even when circumstances invite despair. In my efforts I returned again and again to King’s warning that “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” In postwar Sierra Leone, darkness was familiar. Light required intention.
My efforts and programs in nonviolence workshops, peace clubs in schools, social justice advocacy, women and youth engagement in technology, and the use of art to promote human rights are grounded in the belief that how we rebuild matters as much as what we rebuild.
More about the Sierra Leone work here that King inspired.
King’s moral clarity shaped that belief. He understood that violence may force change, but it cannot form community. “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that” became, for me, less a quote and more a discipline especially when working with communities challenged.
It affirmed King’s conviction that people must never be reduced to their suffering. Documenting the personal stories of war victims, giving them voice, dignity, and hope echoes King’s insistence that justice begins by recognizing the full humanity of those the world would rather forget.
There were moments when patience felt like betrayal. In such moments, King’s insistence that “justice too long delayed is justice denied” clarified my resolve. Peace does not mean silence. Nonviolence does not mean passivity. King taught that moral action requires urgency without cruelty, courage without hatred. That balance has guided my leadership when tensions were high and the risks of our work were real.
What makes King a guiding light to the world is that his moral compass is universally legible. It does not depend on nationality or circumstance. It asks each of us—whether in the American South or postwar West Africa—to measure our actions by their effect on human dignity. His belief that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” has sustained me when progress felt invisible, when rebuilding felt slower than grief.
I do not invoke King to sanctify my work, but to steady it. His life reminds me that the work of peace is not only about rebuilding structures, but about rebuilding conscience. In Sierra Leone, amid the legacies of war and disease, King’s light has helped me choose methods that heal rather than harden, that unite rather than dominate.
To intertwine my story with King’s is to acknowledge this truth that GHI embodies so well: lasting change begins not with power, but with principle. And in a world still aching for moral clarity, his compass continues to point forward toward justice, toward dignity, and toward the stubborn, necessary hope that makes peace possible.
BA international relations - Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone (USL) 🇸🇱 1998
Master of Science in Law
Candidate at Francis Carey King School of Law. University of Maryland Baltimore. 🇺🇸
Jeanne Sauve Scholar at McGill University. Montreal Canada 🇨🇦 2004/5
UN ITU Telecom World Digital Innovation Fellow, Geneva October - 2011
UN Intern and fellow at the 1st Summit on the Information Society
WSIS Geneva - Switzerland December - 2003.
Cable and Wireless Childnet Awards Winner. London - April 2003
World Bank DC - World Ethics Forum Fellow and Young Leader at Keble College, Oxford University- April 2006
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