The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who spent his life fighting American injustice, was born on January 15, 1929. His birthday, which became a national holiday at the end of 1983, is celebrated every year on the third Monday in January.
WAR
Hagiography and the passage of time after his assassination have faded the radicalism of King’s vision – the civil rights icon attacked the Vietnam War and the uneven American economy at the end of his life.
King had concluded that militarism, like poverty, was preventing the United States from living up to its ideals.
“I am against the war in Vietnam because I love America,” King said in 1967 to an audience at New York’s Riverside Church. “I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with fear and sadness in my heart and above all.” with a passionate desire to see our beloved country as a moral example to the world. “
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: LIFE AND HERITAGE
UNITED STATES – 1957: Portrait of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (Photo by Walter Bennett / The LIFE Pictures Collection via Getty Images)
POVERTY
By the spring of 1968, King had won racial desegregation and voting rights and was planning his campaign for the poor when he turned his attention to Memphis, the gritty city of Tennessee on the Mississippi River. In his support for striking sanitation workers, King wanted to lead marches and show that nonviolent protest still works.
The father of nonviolence in the American civil rights movement was 39 years old when he was murdered in Memphis on the evening of April 4, 1968, and he had already become one of the world’s most famous figures.
The next day the king’s closest confidante, Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, said, “Tighten your belts and dry your tears. If you love Martin Luther King as you say you will help me continue his work.”
The members of King’s close circle hardly paused to mourn. They rushed to do his unfinished job and turned it into a lifelong vow.
Some went into politics. Some continued to serve the organization that King ran or that they founded. Others returned to the pulpit and preached a gospel of racial liberation.
On the campus of Atlanta University (later renamed Clark Atlanta University), American religious and civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., sat with his hands on his knees in mid-May 1960. (Photo by Howard Sochurek / The LIFE Image Collection via Getty Images)
SEPARATION
King fought on many progressive issues throughout his life as minister and chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, speaking out against various systemic barriers holding back Blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.
He gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington in March 1963, calling for racial equality.
ALVEDA KING SAYS OF MLK’S ICONIC SPEECH, 57 YEARS LATER: “WE HAVE ANOTHER DREAM”
King helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her place on a city bus.
Four days after Parks was arrested for refusing to give up his seat on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus, King warned a crowd at Holt Street Baptist Church to start a bus boycott.
“Now we’re going out to stick together and stick with this thing until the end,” he said to the thousands gathered in church that day in 1955.
A federal court ended racial segregation on Montgomery public buses and brought King into the national spotlight.
Years later, he stood behind President Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed segregation in public places and discrimination in the workplace based on race or national origin.
PA News Photo 25/9/64: Dr. Martin Luther King during a one day visit to London. (Photo by PA Images via Getty Images)
CHOOSE
King pushed for federal civil rights legislation that was eventually passed and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
King’s participation in the 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital, Montgomery, raised awareness of the problems blacks faced when registering to vote.
Speaking at a special session of Congress after demonstrators were attacked by white mobs and police, Johnson successfully urged lawmakers to pass the voting rights bill.
King made a lasting impact. The American South had thousands of blacks elected to various offices in the 1970s and 1980s, compared to almost none in the 1950s.
In Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Houston, coalitions of blacks and Latinos formed to elect people of color to local and federal offices – and eventually helped elect the nation’s first black president.
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HERITAGE
Towards the end of his life, King’s progressivism became more radical and the backlash against him grew stronger.
“We fought hard and long after integration I believe and I know we will win. But I have come to believe that we are integrating into a house on fire,” said King. “I fear America may lose its moral vision … And I fear that as we integrate we are going to a place that does not understand that this nation must delve deeply into the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Until we commit to ensuring that justice and opportunity are given to the lower class, we will continue to perpetuate the anger and violence that are tearing the soul of this nation apart. “
In a 1966 Gallup poll, 63 percent of the American public rated King negatively. According to a Harris poll from early 1968, the icon died with a public disapproval rate of nearly 75%. After King was murdered, 31% of Americans told Gallup that they “felt like he brought it with him”.
Although the leader preferred the power of morality to fame of popularity, it has grown over the years, which shows his statement: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it leans towards justice.”
King’s example and insistence on nonviolent protest continues to influence many activists who advocate civil rights and social change.
His legacy of service and political empowerment has spawned generations who have been inspired that the political and social order requires more action that conforms to the principles of pacifism and togetherness of the king.
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