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Monday January 15th 2007. MLK Day |
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Martin Luther, Jr King Biography (1929–6 cool <p>Baptist minister and civil rights leader, born in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The grandson and son of Baptist ministers, in 1935 his father changed both their names to Martin to honour the German Protestant. Young Martin graduated from Morehouse College in Georgia (194 cool and Crozer Theological Seminary (1951) and then took a PhD from Boston University (1955), where he also met his future (1957) wife, Coretta Scott, with whom he had four children. Ordained a minister (1947) at his father's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, he became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL (1953).
Relatively untested when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a bus in December 1955, he led the boycott of Montgomery's segregated buses for over a year (eventually resulting in the Supreme Court decision outlawing discrimination in public transportation). In 1957 he was chosen president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and he began to broaden his active role in the civil-rights struggle while advocating his nonviolent approach to achieving results. His approach was based on the ideas of Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi as well on Christian teachings.
In 1959 he moved to Atlanta to become co-pastor of his father's church, and in the ensuing years gave much of his energies to organizing protest demonstrations and marches in such cities as Birmingham, AL (1963), St Augustine, FL (1964), and Selma, AL (1965). During these years he was arrested and jailed by Southern officials on several occasions, he was stoned and physically attacked, and his house was bombed. He was also placed under secret surveillance by the FBI due to the strong prejudices of its director, J Edgar Hoover, who wanted to discredit King as both a leftist and a womanizer. King's finest hour came on 28 August 1963 when he led the great march in Washington, DC, that culminated with his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech at the Lincoln Memorial. At the height of his influence, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and he used his new-found powers to attack discrimination in the US North. Meanwhile, as the Vietnam War began to consume the country, he also broadened his criticisms of American society because he saw the impact of the war on the country's resources and energies.
In the spring of 1968 he went to Memphis, TN to show support for the striking city workers, and he was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of his motel there. (James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the murder, although he later insisted that he was innocent.) With his oratorical style that drew directly on the force of the Bible, and with his serene confidence derived from his non-violent philosophy, he had advocated a programme of moderation and inclusion, and although later generations would question some of his message, few could deny that he had been the guiding light for 15 of the most crucial years in America's civil-rights struggle.
<P><a href="http://tinypic.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i10.tinypic.com/3z1tyk7.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a><P> Who passed away Jan of 06.<P>Civil rights activist. Born in Marion, Alabama.
Although best known as the wife of 1960s civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King established a distinguished career in activism in her own right. Working side-by-side with her husbandthroughout the 1950s and 1960s, King took part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and worked to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Her memoir, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr., was published n 1969.
Following her husband's assassination in 1968, she continued their work, founding the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, GA. She served as the center's president and chief executive officer from its inception.
In 1980, a 23 acre site around King?s birthplace was designated for use by the King Center. The following year, a museum complex was dedicated on the site.
King also was behind the fifteen-year fight to have her husband's birthday instituted as a national holiday--President Ronald Reagan finally signed the bill in 1983.
In 1995, King passed the reins of the King Center over to her son, Dexter, but she remains in the public eye. She writes regular articles on social issues and publishes a syndicated column. She has been a regular commentator on CNN since 1980. In 1997, she called for a retrial for her husband's alleged assasin, James Earl Ray. Ray died in prison before the trial could be effected.
Coretta and Martin Luther King, Jr. had four children: Martin Luther King III, who now serves as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); Yolanda, an actress; Bernice, a lawyer and Baptist minister; and Dexter; who runs the King Library and Archive. King suffered a heart attack and stroke in August 2005; she died on January 30, 2006. <P><a href="http://tinypic.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i16.tinypic.com/2qu0yt0.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a><P><b><font size=3><font color=gold>Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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 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. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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 slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four 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.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" <p>This speech has been through years of court cases to determine, in various jurisdictions, whether it was ever copyrighted, and the United States court system recently laid down their rulings that this speech had never been copyrighted, since at that time it was required to post a copyright notice on printed copies to be distributed, and this speech was distributed without such an extra (C) Copyright notice as was then required in the US. The US revised this law in 1989, and no longer requires such notice.<p>Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963<p> Please Remember this day.
<b><font size=6> MLK
 iCelticprincessz · Mon Jan 15, 2007 @ 07:26am · 0 Comments |
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