Martin Lutherking Jr

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Martin Luther King- a prominent figure in the African American Community. He was not just a social activist but a hero to many. A minister who played a crucial role in the liberating African Americans from the yolk of inequality until his assassination in 1968. As we continue to celebrate the lives of Malcom X, Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass, it is important that we pay special homage to this hero during this years’ Black History Month. King was a man of faith, and that faith could be seen in his actions. He saw a world of endless possibilities and he made sure that the African American descents had the opportunity to experience these possibilities.

Dr. King sought equality for all humans, especially the African American, the economically disadvantaged and all the victims of injustices through peaceful protests. King was the lifeblood driving the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington. This march is particularly monumental as it helped bring about such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But who is Martin Luther King? A LIFE WELL LIVED…

King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born the second child of Martin Luther King Sr. a pastor and Alberta Williams King, a former schoolteacher. He grew up with his siblings Christine and Alfred Daniel in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood. The neighborhood was known to be home to some very prominent African Americans in the country. He went to school at the segregated public schools and at the age of 15, King was admitted to the Morehouse College. Here, King studied law and medicine. And even though King never intended to join the seminary,

he changed his mind under the influence and mentorship of the then Morehouse’s president, Dr. Benjamin Mays, a very popular and influential theologian. Mays was also known well for his open condemnation of racial inequality.

After graduating from Morehouse in 1948, King joined the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. He earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree and also won the prestigious fellowship and was elected the president of his predominantly white senior class. He would later enroll in a graduate program at Boston University, he completed his coursework in 1953 and he earned a doctorate degree in systematic theology in 1955.

MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT

King, his wife and his four children had been living in Montgomery for less than a year when the city became the epicenter of the burgeoning struggle for civil rights in America, propagated by the landmark Brown V. Board of Education decision of 1954. In 1955, Rosa Parks, the secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a Montgomery bus and was arrested. The boycott that followed that saga would continue for at least 381 days and the protestants chose Dr. King to be their leader and spokesperson. The chaos emanating from the protests put a heavy strain on the public transit system and the downtown business owners.

At the end of this case, Martin Luther King had become a voice to reckon with. He had entered the national spotlight as an inspirational proponent of peaceful protests. This meant that he also had a target on his back, he became a target for white supremacists, who in fact firebombed his family. Fast forward to 1958, there was an assassination attempt on King. Izola Ware Curry walked into a Harlem department store where King was busy signing books, she found King and asked, “are you Martin Luther King?” When King replied “yes” she stabbed him in the chest with a knife. King however

survived, this time more energetic than ever before “The experience of these last few days has deepened my faith in the relevance of the spirit of nonviolence, if necessary social change is peacefully to take place.”

Formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the March on Washington What had happened before that is, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and a series of other protests emboldened the young minister and in 1957, King and other civil rights activists, most of them fellow ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) This was a group dedicated to achieve full equality for the African American community through non-violent protests. In fact, the SCLC motto was “Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed.” He remained in this organization until his death. As a leader of the SCLC, King travelled all around the country and the world preaching his non-violence agenda.

King worked with other civil rights and religious group leaders to organize the March on Washington for equality and freedom. It was a peaceful political rally meant to reveal the injustices that African Americans continued to face across the country. The rally attracted some 200,000 to 300,000 participants and it is widely regarded as the watershed moment in the History of the American Civil Rights movement. It also played a critical role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Today, because of the struggles Martin Luther King endured, we remember him most of all as a man of peace. He is heralded as the prophet of non-violence, holding on to a belief so powerful that we consider him truly self-actualized. His teachings of non-violence continue to impact and inspire movements for freedom and justice. Even though Dr. King was a peace advocate, he was also a complex man. Although a Christian preacher, he never shied away from speaking what was right to power as the leader of people who had been long afflicted and thirsted from justice and full rights to citizenship.

“It all boils down to the fact that we must never allow ourselves to become satisfied with unattained goals. We must always maintain a kind of divine discontent.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

These words are perhaps what rattled power brokers of America. They made him a soft target for assassination.

Despite all the lessons history has taught us as people, we often find ourselves looped, continuing to make the same mistakes or even following the same patterns. Even though Dr. King fought so hard for racial equality, polls indicate that racial tensions still exist in the country, it could even be worse than that of Summer 1964. Were King alive today, few might argue whether he would be an advocate for reparations, considering his words in 1967, “Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice.” The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of Black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor—both Black and White, both here and abroad. Dr. King did his part, it is up to me and you to fight and make sure that his legacy lives on. I love one of his quotes “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism,” we have a chance of making this nation great. One of the ways is acquiring knowledge. Equip yourself with knowledge, knowledge is power, and the power is now!

Sources;

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/12/archives/martin-luther-king-and-17-others-jailedtrying-to-integrate-st.html https://www.proquest.com/blog/2014/Are-We-Still-The-Same-After-All-These-Years.html http://theievoice.com/divine-discontent/ https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr https://www.voa.org/blog/celebrating-black-history-month-by-honoring-martin-luther-kingjrs-legacy https://www.glsen.org/blog/remembering-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-during-black-historymonth

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