Martin Luther
King Jr. Day
“I Have A Dream
Deeply Rooted In The
American Dream!”
(M. Javed Naseem)
America
just celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday – 15th of January. Martin Luther
King Jr. was not only an American leader, he was actually a world leader who
fought against injustice, discrimination and racism towards the minorities –
especially the Africans (blacks) living in the West. He was a visionary leader
who was deeply committed to achieving social justice through nonviolent means.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill
creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday honoring the legacy of
the slain civil rights leader. The holiday was first celebrated in 1986, and in
all 50 states in 2000.
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“It is obvious today that America has
defaulted
on this promissory
note insofar as her citizens of
color are concerned.
Instead of honoring this
sacred obligation, America
has given the Negro
people a bad check, a
check which has come
back marked
“insufficient funds.” But we refuse
to believe that the
bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe
that there are insufficient
funds in the great
vaults of opportunity of this
nation. So we have
come to cash this check — a
check that will give
us upon demand the riches
of freedom and the
security of justice.”
– Martin Luther King
Jr.
****************************************
All credit goes to Benjamin E. Mays, President of the Morehouse College, for guiding Martin Luther King to
a spiritual path and then influencing his spiritual development. Mays was an
outspoken advocate for racial equality and encouraged King to use Christianity
as a potential force for social justice and political change. After being
accepted at several colleges for his doctoral study, including Yale and
Edinburgh in Scotland, King
enrolled at Boston
University.
During the work on his doctorate, Martin Luther King Jr. met
Coretta Scott, an aspiring singer and musician, at the New
England Conservatory School in Boston.
They were married in June 1953 and had four children. At the age of 25, King
completed his Ph.D and earned his degree in 1955.
On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old lady Rosa Parks boarded the
Cleveland Avenue
bus to go home after an exhausting day at work. She sat in the first row of the
"colored" section in the middle of the bus. As the bus traveled, all
the seats in the white section filled up, and several more white passengers
boarded the bus. The bus driver demanded that Parks and several other black
Americans give up their seats. Three black passengers reluctantly gave up their
places, but Parks remained seated. The driver asked her again to give up her
seat and again she refused. Parks was arrested and booked for violating the
Montgomery City Code. At her trial a week later, in a 30-minute hearing, Parks
was found guilty and fined.
On the night that Rosa Parks was arrested, E.D. Nixon, head
of the local chapter of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People) met with Martin Luther King Jr. and other local civil rights
leaders to plan a Montgomery
bus boycott. King was elected to lead the boycott because he was young,
well-trained with solid family connections and had professional standing. But
he was also new to the community and had few enemies, so it was felt he would
have strong credibility with the black community.
In his first speech as the group's president, King declared,
"We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an
amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that
we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved
from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and
justice."
In 1959, with the help of the American Friends Service
Committee, and inspired by Gandhi’s success with non-violent activism, Martin
Luther King visited Gandhi's birthplace in India. The trip affected him in a
deeply profound way, increasing his commitment to America's civil rights struggle.
African-American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who had studied Gandhi's
teachings, became one of King's associates and counseled him to dedicate
himself to the principles of non-violence. Rustin served as King's mentor and
advisor throughout his early activism and was the main organizer of the 1963
March on Washington.
In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. organized a
demonstration in downtown Birmingham,
Alabama. Entire families
attended. City police turned dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators. Martin
Luther King was jailed along with large numbers of his supporters, but the
event drew nationwide attention. In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail,
King eloquently spelled out his theory of non-violence:
"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis
and foster such a tension that a community, which has constantly refused to
negotiate, is forced to confront the issue."
By the end of the Birmingham campaign, Martin Luther King
Jr. and his supporters were making plans for a massive demonstration on the
nation's capital composed of multiple organizations, all asking for peaceful
change. On August 28, 1963, the historic March on Washington drew more than 200,000 people in
the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It was here that King made his famous
"I Have a Dream" speech, emphasizing his belief that someday all men
could be brothers.
*************************************
“I say to you
today, my friends, so even though
we face the
difficulties of today and tomorrow,
I still have a
dream. It is a dream deeply rooted
in the American
dream.
I have a dream
that one day this nation will rise
up and live out
the true meaning of its creed:
“We hold these
truths to be self-evident: that all
men are created
equal.”
I have a dream
that one day on the red hills of
Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of
former slave
owners will be able to sit down together
at the table of
brotherhood.
I have a dream
that one day even the state of
Mississippi, a state sweltering
with the heat
of injustice, sweltering
with the heat of
oppression, will
be transformed into an
oasis of freedom
and justice.
I have a dream
that my four little children will
one day live in a
nation where they will not be
judged by the color
of their skin but by the
content of their
character.
I have a dream today!”
— Martin Luther
King, Jr.
*************************************
The rising tide of civil rights agitation produced a strong
effect on public opinion. Many people in cities not experiencing racial tension
began to question the nation's Jim Crow laws and the near century second class
treatment of African-American citizens. This resulted in the passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorizing the federal government to enforce
desegregation of public accommodations and outlawing discrimination in publicly
owned facilities. This also led to Martin Luther King receiving the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1964.
King's struggle continued throughout the 1960s. Often, it
seemed as though the pattern of progress was two steps forward and one step
back. On March 7, 1965, a
civil rights march, planned from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama's
capital, turned violent as police with nightsticks and tear gas met the
demonstrators as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus
Bridge. King was not in
the march, however, the attack was televised showing horrifying images of
marchers being bloodied and severely injured. Seventeen demonstrators were
hospitalized in a day that would be called "Bloody Sunday."
A second march was canceled due to a restraining order to
prevent the march from taking place. A third march was planned and this time
King made sure he was part of it. Not wanting to alienate southern judges by
violating the restraining order, a different approach was taken. On March 9, 1965, a procession of 2,500
marchers, both black and white, set out once again to cross the Pettus Bridge
and confronted barricades and state troopers. Instead of forcing a
confrontation, King led his followers to kneel in prayer and they then turned
back.
Alabama Governor, George Wallace, continued to try to
prevent another march, however, President Lyndon B. Johnson pledged his support
and ordered U.S. Army troops and the Alabama National Guard to protect the
protestors. On March 21, approximately 2,000 people began a march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery. On March 25, the number of
marchers, which had grown to an estimated 25,000, gathered in front of the
state capitol where Dr. King delivered a televised speech. Five months after
the historic peaceful protest, President Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights
Act.
From late 1965 through 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. expanded
his civil rights efforts into other larger American cities, including Chicago and Los
Angeles. But he met with increasing criticism and
public challenges from young black power leaders. King's patient, non-violent
approach and appeal to white middle-class citizens alienated many black
militants who considered his methods too weak, too late and ineffective. To
address this criticism, King began making a link between discrimination and
poverty, and he began to speak out against the Vietnam War. He felt that America's involvement in Vietnam was
politically untenable and the government's conduct in the war discriminatory to
the poor. He sought to broaden his base by forming a multi-race coalition to
address the economic and unemployment problems of all disadvantaged people.
By 1968, the years of demonstrations and confrontations were
beginning to wear on Martin Luther King Jr. He had grown tired of marches,
going to jail, and living under the constant threat of death. He was becoming
discouraged at the slow progress of civil rights in America and the increasing
criticism from other African-American leaders. Plans were in the works for
another march on Washington
to revive his movement and bring attention to a widening range of issues. In
the spring of 1968, a
labor strike by Memphis
sanitation workers drew King to one last crusade.
On April 3, he gave his final and what proved to be an
eerily prophetic speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” in which he
told supporters at the Mason Temple in Memphis,
"I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you
to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land." The
next day, while standing on a balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel,
Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a sniper's bullet. The shooter, a
malcontent drifter and former convict named James Earl Ray, was eventually
apprehended after a two-month, international manhunt.
The assassination sparked riots and demonstrations in more
than 100 cities across the country. In 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to
assassinating King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He died in prison
on April 23, 1998.
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