No One Is an Outsider: Moving from Fear to Love

This article is taken from the transcript of a Sunday talk given by Ryan Harvey at Unity San Francisco in 2026.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a father, pastor, teacher, and hero. But for much of my life, I am ashamed to say, he was just another man I read about in a textbook.

As a child, the idea that someone would judge me differently because of the color of my skin was incomprehensible. The thought of any corruption in our government, police force, or military was even more foreign to me.

I lived in a bubble of safety. I grew up on a first-name basis with the local police officers. I went to a military school that I loved. I earned badges in the Boy Scouts. I was able to live in blissful ignorance because I was living the manifestation of the dream Dr. King spoke about in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.

• I can vote because he fought for the dream on the Selma, Alabama, bridge.
• I can stand here on this platform today and speak to you because he died for the dream.
• He died for me.

There is no understating what Dr. King has done for me and my community. There is no understating what he has done on the path toward love and equality.

And yet, my gratitude was hollow when I was living comfortably as a child. It was hard for me to truly understand the weight of what King went through until I started having my own experiences.

The Reality of Racism

The first time I experienced racism, I was 11 years old. It was Halloween. I was dressed in my ninja costume. Walking with my sister and our friend, we came across a man and his daughter. When the father saw us, he didn’t see children in costumes. He didn’t see neighbors. He saw a threat. He became so afraid for his daughter that he physically picked her up and ran away from us.

At 11 years old, you don’t have words for that. But you remember.

I learned that day that racism is fear, and I have felt its sting. I have walked up streets with families watching me from behind their blinds. I have been terrified as a car stopped in the middle of the road, trailing me.

The fear that others experienced because of our differences was instilled in me.

I was on a first-name basis with the cops in my area. I knew them. And yet, I remember walking to the grocery store one day when a cop car turned toward me in the street. My body didn’t wait for my brain. I flinched away in fear. And I knew that officer.

But in that moment, the truth was revealed. The fear is real that the next time I go out, I won’t come home. It’s real for me. It’s real for my family. It’s real for millions across the country. As I look at the news, all I see is fear.

Fear of a knock on their door, fear of going to work, fear of being “othered” because your neighborhood, your home, your street no longer feel safe. Whether it is the flashing lights of a patrol car, an unmarked van in a driveway, or men wearing masks, it’s all the same—it’s fear.

Meeting Others’ Fears and Our Own

So I want to be honest. Over the last few weeks, months, year—and while I’ve been working on this talk—I have been struggling not to be consumed by fear.

As I was going through documents, researching Unity principles, listening to MLK’s speeches, I kept searching for something to help ground me. When I read Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” one phrase stood out to me.

MLK said he was not afraid of the word tension, and that while he had worked and preached against violent tension, there was a type of constructive, nonviolent tension that was necessary for growth.

While that resonated with me, it also sounded familiar. I kept rereading the letter, finding more and more meaningful phrases, and trying to figure out why it felt so familiar. It wasn’t until I had read through it a sixth or seventh time that it clicked.

It was when he said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

He was preaching Unity principle.

The Principle of Oneness

For those who are new to Unity teachings or aren’t aware, the first universal principle taught in Unity is that there is only one power and one presence active in my life and the world. The second is that because there is only one power and presence, we are all a part of it.

Martin Luther King leaned into the principle of oneness that no man can be othered, belittled, and demeaned. In the Birmingham letter, he went on to say, “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.”

Meaning that Dr. King didn’t just march for one group of people. He marched against the very idea that we should live in terror of one another. He fully lived into the principle of agape love—unconditional and selfless.

The hardest work we’ll ever do is to embody this principle of love, because it isn’t meant to be passive; it doesn’t let things go by. It means that when I stand for what I believe in, I have to recognize that those who seem to oppose me are humans who deserve dignity, just as I do.

It means that when I march for the people who have been killed; when I march for due process; and when I march so that no man, woman, or child has to live in fear for existing, I am doing so out of love and not hate or fear.

We Have to Choose

We can let fear consume us. We can let it turn us hard and bitter. I could hate the man on Halloween who ran away with his daughter. Hate the government, hate the system. Or we can do as Martin Luther King did and choose to stand in love and understanding.

Dr. King gave us the tools to love and the tools for change. I want to share a few of his quotes with you. The only thing I am going to add is the word for, so you can see how they flow together as a logical spiritual law.

He said, “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

For … “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”

For … “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

This is the key. If I hate the man who fears me, I reinforce his fear and I affirm the very separation he believes in.

So this is the challenge I leave with you today:

• Can we have compassion for the parents who are afraid for their children?
• Can we have compassion for the families who watch from behind their blinds?
• Can we have compassion even for those who impinge upon our character because of factors outside our control?

They are all coming from a place of fear, and Dr. King showed us that we can meet that fear with love.