In three days, on January 21, the nation prepares
for the inauguration of Barack Obama, America’s first African-American
President, for his second term. At the same time, we will pause throughout the
country to honor a man whose efforts were instrumental in many ways in this
historic inauguration. January 21 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a holiday
marked every year on the third Monday in January since 1986, and since 2000,
recognized in all 50 states.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15, 1929 in
Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a Baptist preacher. He followed his father’s
profession, becoming a pastor in a church in the south, ministering to the
needs of a then-segregated black community. The Montgomery bus boycott, sparked
by Rosa Parks arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white male
passenger, King became the leader of the national civil rights movement, and in
1957 helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his achievements
in moving the cause of civil rights forward in the United States, and honored
around the world, he is best remembered for his historic “I Have a Dream”
speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, before an audience
of 250,000 civil rights supporters at the close of the March on Washington.
After the 1963 event, King turned his attention to a focus on poverty and the
war in Vietnam, which he vehemently opposed.
In Memphis, Tennessee to support that city’s garbage
workers in their strike for better wages and working conditions, King was slain
by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968. His death touched off riots around the
country in some of the worst racial violence the country has ever seen.
King’s words in Washington in 1963 are as
appropriate today as they were then, given the economic and social problems
plaguing the nation over 150 years after the end of the Civil War. We are still
a nation of haves and have-nots, with millions going to bed at night with empty
stomachs, without shelter, and deprived of the right to ‘life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.’ The promissory note written by the Founding Fathers when
they drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is still due
for many. As King said, “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 to.” We should take
careful note of what he said after that, though. “In the process of gaining our
rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds . . . let us not wallow
in the valley of despair.”
His dream, the American dream, remains largely a
dream. To honor his legacy, it is up to us, each of us, to continue to work to
make that dream a reality. Even though we might have to face the ‘difficulties
of today and tomorrow,’ we should still cling to that dream, a dream that is
‘deeply rooted in the American dream.’
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