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Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Yesterday, Americans and many citizens around the world celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King (Junior)’s birth anniversary.
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, who is widely regarded as America and the world’s foremost civil rights leader, was cut down in the prime of his life on April 4th, 1968. Had he lived, he would have been 90 years old last Tuesday.
The 33rd observance of MLK Day took on a new significance as Blacks and Hispanics are currently faced with rising discrimination under the Trump presidency. His vulgar remarks show 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 a Supreme Court 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 a Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, which was the epicentre of the civil rights movement against racial segregation in public transportation. In December 1955, Rosa Parks, a black seamstress refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white male. Her arrest and subsequent charge 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 newspaper 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, Dr. King’s leadership of the civil rights movement achieved more progress toward racial equality in America than any time prior. His leadership was so powerful that it led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. 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.
On that occasion, Dr. King made his most famous and eloquent, “I have a Dream” speech with the belief that someday America would live up to its creed of equality, freedom and justice for everyone. His speech resonated around the world. In these trying times, it still does.
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