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There’s more to Martin Luther King Jr. Day than having a dream.
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moments in civil rights
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1863: Emancipation Proclamation frees slaves in the confederate states. Two years later, the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment officially outlaws slavery.
The Arbiter honors MLK’s legacy and his contributions to civil rights.
1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is formed. 1954: Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. 1955-1956: Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus which sparks a 381-day boycott of the bus system in Montgomery, Ala. led by the Montgomery Improvement Association and its president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963: Over a quartermillion people attend the March for Jobs and Freedom, also known as the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. 1964: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act legislation that makes it illegal to segregate blacks and other minorities in hiring, public accommodations, education and transportation.
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Opinion
Cultural status quo would be bittersweet in King’s eyes MCT Campus
Had he lived, Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 83 today. It’s hard to picture the vigorous young man assassinated at the age of 38 as an old man and we wonder what he would think if he were still alive. He would be pleased to know there has been progress in the struggle for civil rights. A black man is president and his wife is one of the most admired women in the world. Another black man, the former CEO of a large company, sought the presidential nomination—of the Republican Party. There are 41 black Americans serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and one in the Senate. African Americans serve on school boards and city councils, and state legislatures and other prominent political positions across the country. There is a growing black middle class and more African Americans are assuming leadership roles in business,
education, the arts and the humanities. But, we think, Rev. King would be dismayed that there remains a large divide between black and white America. He would be unhappy that many black Americans remain snared in the grips of crushing poverty and all the misery that brings. He would be upset that, while African Americans comprise less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, they comprise more than 39 percent of the prison population. He would be angry that homicide is the leading cause of death for black males ages 15 to 34. He would be baffled that, 46 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, some states, including Texas, once again are imposing restrictions on voting that would deny rights and responsibilities to many people of color, the elderly and the poor. He might be amazed at the magnificent new memorial dedicated to him alongside monuments to Thomas Jeffer-
son and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, not far from the shrine to Abraham Lincoln where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. King most likely would survey America today and wonder what happened to the glorious movement he led, a movement to bring not only equal rights but equal opportunities to all Americans. He was not alone, of course; good people, white and black, took up the cause. Some, such as King, gave their lives; many were injured. King was the face of the movement, however. He went to the mountaintop and saw the other side, but we have yet, as a nation, to reach that mountain peak. He hoped his children would be judged not “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He dreamed of a day when “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.”
OnlinE Check out arbiteronline.com for noteworthy Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes and vote for your favorite.
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was taken from us much too soon, but he is more than a memory, more than a photo on the wall. He was not a god, not a perfect man; he sometimes, like all of us, had feet of clay. Yet he remains a symbol of the American spirit and the essence that sets this country apart from others. His dream is wrapped up in the great American Dream, and while we have yet to achieve that dream fully, it endures.
1965: Voting Rights Act passes, eliminating discriminatory voting practices. Snow
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1968: Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change is founded. After King’s assassination in April, his widow, Coretta Scott King, officially founds the “living memorial” to continue his civil rights work. 1988: Congress overrides President Reagan’s veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands anti-discrimination laws to private institutions which receive federal funding. 2005: Edgar K. Killen, the ringleader of Mississippi civil rights murders, is convicted of manslaughter on the 41st anniversary of the 1964 killings.
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A wide-angle view shows thousands of marchers along the National Mall at the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument during the Civil Rights March at Washington D.C. Aug. 28, 1963. arbiteronline.com