Tag Archives: Martin Luther King Day

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – January 15, 2025

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shortly after his release from Reidsville Penitentiary, Georgia, 1960, Photo Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Jack Lewis Hiller, ©1960 Jack L. Hiller

At a particularly harrowing pivot point in the history of the USA, we are in a time of sharp reliefs.

There have always been divisions from the inception of the nation, generally understood as the Federalist – State’s Rights divide. The Constitution, in the original sin of the nation’s founding, upheld the ultimate state’s rights issue by allowing for slavery to continue: a decision that continues to roil our understanding of justice and the rights of citizens and those who reside in our nation.

As Dr. King began his extraordinary crusade for Civil Rights, the nation had to face up to the deep divisions of racism, and in so doing spurred on the civil rights legislation that over a generation guaranteed rights for African Americans,  women, LGBTQ+, Native Americans, immigrants, the disabled, and many other classes of people who were marginalized and overlooked.

And yet, here we are: Racist. Sexist. Anti-Gay. Anti-Trans. Banning books. Banning speech. Dismantling public education through anti-intellectualism and the removal of critical inquiry. And on, and on, as we face the disillusionment of the fourth estate and the celebration of corruption that is transactional oligarchy.

The legacy of Dr. King , however, remains.

His last speech in Memphis in support of the sanitation worker’s strike, known as the I’ve Been To The Mountaintop speech, given on the eve of his martyrdom, remains to instruct us.

May we all have the strength to leave our world better than we found it.

 

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – January 15, 2024

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ZUMA Press/Newscom/File

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was first and last an American patriot. As he stated in his Letter From A Birmingham City Jail,

I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Link Letter from a Birmingham City Jail, April 16, 1963

Months later in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King continued to profess his belief as a patriot, “I still have a dream,” he said. “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.” Link I Have A Dream Speech, August 28, 1963.

Even in his last speech in support of striking sanitation workers at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, the night before he was assassinated, Dr. King, harkened to his deep belief in the American experiment:

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you. Link I’ve Been to the Mountaintop, April 3, 1968.

Today marks Dr. King’s 95th birthday. Would that this great patriot were alive today to give us his wisdom, faith, and profound belief in democratic principles.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – January 15, 2023

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shortly after his release from Reidsville Penitentiary, Georgia, 1960, Photo Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Jack Lewis Hiller, ©1960 Jack L. Hiller

Today would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 94th birthday. Imagine that he would have been with us now. Our moral conscience. Our hero of justice. Our voice of truth…

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his last speech on April 3, 1968 at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. The following day, he was assassinated while standing on the balcony of his motel.

He had come to Memphis to support the city sanitation workers’ strike. He had been feeling ill with a sore throat and fever, but at the behest of the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, made his way to the Church and spoke in front of the enthusiastic crowd.

Prophetic born of tiredness and at times a despair, his final words reach us as the true pastor’s call to fight injustice everywhere no matter the consequences. The struggle remains … as does our profound debt to Dr. King’s sacrifice at the alter of truth and justice.

“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And 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!

Full speech here: Note it is audio only.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – January 17, 2022

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The profundity of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s loss is at times an exponential stain on our nation’s history and national psyche.

Gone is the greatness of his very public intellect and conscience. Yes a leader for civil rights and equity, but also for social justice on the streets of Chicago and Memphis, and in the rice fields of Viet Nam in his calls to withdraw American troops from that theater of war.

Can we imagine him today? A great prophet of the airways? His verbal prowess on display, a great orator toying with the sophists and cynics who ply the boards of what we now call political discourse as they banter about espousing fascism like the school children they are playing with chemicals they neither understand nor care about until, perhaps, some combination blows up in their faces.

I weep for the ideal of our nation. Yes. After all is said and done a patriot of sorts. Molded by my parents idealism and my father’s turn as a revolutionary. Even with his Marxist-Leninist frame of reference, he believed in the experiment. Said, as Zhou Enlai famously quipped of the French Revolution, that we would find out in a couple of hundred more years whether the democratic ideals of the USA’s founders really meant something, but until then, do what we could to ensure its ultimate success.

Dr. King was in many ways our best hope for that success embodying every ideal even as he despaired at the hopelessness he saw all too acutely. Last year’s entry by Democracy Now gives a flavor of the latter day Dr. King, speaking with passion about the ills of America, and the work needed to heal them.  The lessons still reverberate, would that he were here to be our conscience now.

 

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – January 18, 2021

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What would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., make of us today?

ZUMA Press/Newscom/File

We have undergone a violent insurrection at our nation’s Capital Building by those intent on not only impeding the acceptance of the Electoral College vote that saw President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris winning the election, but one that showed a resounding 306-232 win. Those perpetrating the attempted coup and their enablers also came to the Capital with murderous intent seeking out the Vice President and the Speaker of the House for assassination.

A man of faith, Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence saw him to lead a movement for Civil Rights and go on to embrace anti-war sentiments, social justice, the rights and plights of the poor, and the deeply rooted fractures and faults of the American experiment that were rooted in slavery. That Dr. King persevered through beatings, imprisonment, and attempted assassinations before finally succumbing to a white supremacist’s bullet is a testament not only to his faith but to his belief in democracy.

On the cusp of inaugurating the nation’s first Female, Black, South-Asian Vice President, let us consider how Dr. King’s legacy has fueled our sense that justice must come for our experiment to succeed. Now more than ever, that project is in peril and it is up to all of us to fight for the “liberty and justice for all” that continues to allude our understanding of a more perfect union.

Dr. King’s 1967 speech at Stanford University is as potent today as it was 54 years ago. We must overcome.

remembering martin luther king jr. – january 20, 2020

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Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – January 20, 2020

“For years now, I have heard the word ‘wait’ … this ‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘never.’ We must come to see that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

To understand Dr. King is to know the record of his work. “King: A Filmed Record … Montgomery to Memphis” was released in 1970. It carried the raw pain of his terrible loss a mere two years before along with a clear understanding of the arc and breadth of his work for civil rights and social justice — fights we engage in today with a renewed urgency for action to overcome the ills of racism, intolerance, fascism, anti-immigrant fervor, anti-semitism, the denial of LGBTQ rights, climate change denial, and on and on.  Now as then we are called upon to witness and fight against justice denied.

Remembering martin luther king jr. – january 22, 2019

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Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – January 22, 2019

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life’s work was to right the wrongs of injustice wherever he found them. In so doing he became the conscience of a nation. On October 26,1967, six months before his assassination, Dr. King was in Philadelphia where he delivered a speech to the students at Barratt Junior High School. The speech was entitled “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?” and in our current body politic, Dr. King’s words resonate as never before.

remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – january 15, 2018

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Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – january 15, 2018

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ZUMA Press/Newscom/File

Today would have marked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 89th birthday. This image of Dr. King flanked by the American flag is particularly poignant–since his sacrifice to the greater good of the United States resonates so powerfully in our polity today. We should not forget that the America of his dream continues to fight to shout out his teachings with full pride of place–no matter the obstacles.

On September 12, 1962, Dr. King gave a speech at New York City’s Park Sheraton Hotel commemorating the 100th anniversary of what was known as the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln. The speech was thought to have been lost for decades until a young intern discovered an audio copy of it in the New York State Museum in Albany.  As noted by WBAI in their commentary on the speech: At the end of the speech, Dr. King quotes a preacher (former slave) who he says “didn’t quite have his grammar right but uttered words of great symbolic profundity.”

“Lord, we ain’t what we oughta be. We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But, thank God, we ain’t what we was.”

 

 

 

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – January 16, 2017

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Remember Martin Luther King Jr. – January 16, 2017

martinlutherking

“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.

Dr. Martin Luther King,  March 25, 1965, Montgomery, Alabama

The freedom march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in the cause of African-American voting rights was pivotal to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Selma demonstrations and marches totaled 18 days. Begun on March 7, 1965, the first march was led by Congressman John Lewis, then head of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). When the initial group of approximately 600 marchers reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge and crossed into Dallas County, the were met by state troopers who proceeded to beat them back ost brutally. That first “Bloody Sunday” was the beginning of other horrific confrontations leading to the death of civil rights activist James Reeb. The third march, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, began on March 21st and culminated on the steps of the State Capital Building in Montgomery, Alabama on March 25th, 1965.

Selma speeches

 

The following is a rarely shown documentary of the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. It is stark and brief and filled with sights, sounds and music.

Selma – Montgomery March 1965, brief documentary by Stefan Sharff

 

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day – January 19, 2015

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Martin Luther King, Jr., Day – January 19, 2015

Martin Luther King Jr.

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.” 

– Martin Luther King, Jr.,  A Testament Of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches 

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last work was to support the sanitation workers on strike in Memphis, Tennessee. The following is an excerpt from a documentary on their story and excerps from King’s speeches in support of their efforts.

 

Martin Luther King Day, January 20, 2014 …

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Martin Luther King Day, January 20, 2014 …

Martin Luther King Jr.

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.,  A Testament Of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches 

The following is a rarely heard speech from August 1967.

Dr. King spoke about the historical ramifications of slavery and inequality–with the strong belief that there was still so much work to do and unwincingly put himself on the line as a leader who would never stand down from what he felt was necessary to do.

He gave the speech at the National Association of TV and Radio Announcers convention.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate weakness of violence
is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate….
Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate weakness of violence
is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate….
Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.