Latest update January 17th, 2025 6:30 AM
Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.
Last Monday, Americans and many citizens around the world celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King’s (Junior) birth anniversary. It was signed into law as a holiday by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 and became official in January 1986. 
Dr. King’s birthday is celebrated on the third Monday in January. It is a public holiday to honour his legacy, his fight for freedom, justice and equity and against racism in America. Dr. King is widely regarded as America and the world’s foremost civil rights leader.
The 32nd observance of MLK Day has taken on a new significance as Americans, especially those of African descent, are faced with rising discrimination under the Trump presidency. His recent vulgar remark shows his overt disdain for non-white people.
This much was strikingly evident in his claim that former US President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.
The holiday is meant to transform Dr. King’s life and teachings into community service, empower individuals, bridge barriers, and create solutions to social problems. King joined the civil rights movement in 1954 after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court’s decision that segregated schools were unconstitutional.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, a city plagued by racial discrimination at the time, King’s oratorical skills, courage and determination to raise public awareness of racism and segregation in the US catapulted him into the leadership of the civil rights movement.
Dr. King was the pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, which was the epicenter of the civil rights movement against racial segregation in public transportation. On December1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white male. Her arrest for civil disobedience sparked a grassroots movement led by Dr. King who organised a bus boycott in Montgomery. The year-long boycott attracted national attention when he and other civil rights activists were arrested and beaten during protests.
The boycott ended with a ban on racial segregation on all Montgomery buses by a United States District Court.
During the next decade, Dr. King organised several non-violent protests and mass demonstrations across the country to draw attention to racial discrimination and to demand civil rights legislation to protect the rights of African-Americans. His peaceful demonstrations encountered beatings from white police with dogs and fire hoses. The attacks generated newspapers headlines across the country and around the world.
While Dr. King’s non-violent approach and his moderate stance attracted many progressive whites in America, they were vehemently opposed by the militant Malcolm X who advocated freedom by any means necessary.
Dr. King also demonstrated against poverty and international conflict, including the Vietnam War, but he was true to his principles that humans everywhere, regardless of colour, ethnicity or creed are equal members of the human race.
Prior to his death on April 4, 1968, Dr. King’s leadership of the civil rights movement achieved more progress toward racial equality in America than in the previous 350 years. His leadership was so powerful that it led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 by Congress. That year he was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
His charismatic leadership inspired men and women in the US and around the world. It sparked the conscience of a generation that culminated in the historic march on Washington, DC on August 28, 1963 which drew over 250,000.
In the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, the icon of the civil rights movement made his most famous and eloquent “I have a Dream” speech with the belief that someday America will live up to its creed of equality, freedom and justice for everyone.
His speech resonated with people around the world as he became the symbol of the civil rights movement in America.
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