A Voice for the People, Martin Luther King Jr.

A Voice for the People, Martin Luther King Jr.

By Josephine Smith

An activist, a minister, a speaker, a hero, a husband, a father, and a legend; every year we take the day of January 17th to remember this phenomenal man that lived in our nation’s past and helped form its present. But who was Martin Luther King Jr. really? Just a face in the pictures? A statue in Washington DC? A long name? A lesson in the textbooks? The maker of some famous speech which we only know a line or two of? Who do we remember on January 17th? What do we remember? Why do we remember?

Martin King was born on January 15th, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. Named after his father, Martin Luther King Sr., who was named after the famous Catholic priest, Martin Luther. Just like the famed Martin Luther, who brought radical change to the Catholic Church societies, so would Martin Luther King Jr., in civil rights. Martin was a brilliant student who at 15 began attending Morehouse College. In 1948, he graduated and started studying at Crozor Theologian Seminary in Pennsylvania. He earned a degree in systematic theology and was voted president of his class, which was predominantly white. After Crozor, he attended Boston University. It was during his studying at Boston that he would meet the young singer, Coretta Scott. They married in 1953 then hit the road southward for Montgomery, Alabama. King went to pastor the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, founded in 1877 by former slaves who wished to gather as free citizens of America.

Mongomery Bus Boycott

Less than a year later, Rosa Parks was arrested for standing against segregation on buses. This would invoke a demand on one side for equal rights and on the other for a stronger installation of segregation. Like a saw cutting away at a thin rope so the event frayed the last strains of contentment, no longer was it a question of if it would snap, but rather who would find themselves with the shorter end of the rope. After the harrowing Rosa Parks incident, the African American community agreed to boycott the busing industry. This demanded attention to the injustices that were being committed through segregation. Not only would this economically impact the bus industry, but it would be the beginning action of the civil rights protest that would change the nation.

Martin Luther King Jr. became a leader of the boycott, entering the nation’s spotlight. His nonviolent protests would rally many behind the just cause. But many saw the movement as a threat and King as a threat to them. In January 1956, the Kings’ home was bombed. Again in 1958, Izola Curry tried to assassinate him in his office by stabbing him in the chest. These events, King said, only reinforced his support of the nonviolent protest in the civil rights movement.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Emboldened by the boycott in Mongomery, Martin King and a group of fellow ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. SCLC, as it became known, was a group that was dedicated to civil rights and the stop of racial segregation. King was made president of the SCLC and traveled around the world giving speeches on their cause. From Debrecen, Hungary to the dusty land of Galilee, Israel, from the lush plains of India to the shallow hills of Georgia, he traveled about speaking out against the injustices that were being committed towards the African American population.

The Letters from Birmingham Jail

The King family uprooted from Montgomery in 1960 and moved back to Martin’s home city of Atlanta. Martin King there began to co-pastor the Ebenezer Baptist Church alongside his father. In 1963, a large peaceful protest for fair working rights, against hiring discrimination, and general segregation swept through the streets of Birmingham, Georgia. King was arrested on April 12th for his involvement in the nonviolent protest. He was held in Birmingham jail for eight days, during which he penned the famous words known as “The Letters from Birmingham Jail.”.

Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere. - The Letters from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr.

The March on Washington

The origin of the famous march began many years before King’s arousing of the civil rights movement. In 1941, A. Philip Randolph, the founder of the BSCP, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, organized a march on Washington to protest the exclusion of African American soldiers in World War II and the favoritism of the New Deal of 1933. The day before the march was scheduled to take place though, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Randolph to stop discrimination in combat jobs and to form the FECP, Fair Employment Practice Committee. Randolph called off the march, for the time being. But in the mid-1940s the government cut off funding of the FECP, causing it to shut down in 1946. Now that reason for which he had called off the march had been dissolved, Randoph saw an opportunity. In 1956, he proposed another march on Washington to King. From there the idea took off and by August 28th the next year, 200,000 to 300,000 people had gathered to raise their voices for freedom and justice. The mass gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear the speeches of various civil rights activists. The world was watching as this monumental moment unfolded with 3,000 members of the press covering the event. An array of speakers agreed to present their cases of justice before the people, but history shows that the last may have been the most moving of all. King had decided to speak last that day. The calm and pleasant summer day stiffened with anticipation as the minister from Georgia stepped up to the mic. The earnest people lent their ear as he began with these words ‘I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.’

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exhalted [sic], every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

King’s speech struck the hearts of every American on one level or another, bringing to light the struggles in which they all partook. Later that year, King was named man of the year by TIMES magazine and was given the Nobel Peace Prize, making him the youngest to ever receive the award.

From Selma to Mongomery

In spring 1965, the tension over civil rights burst when a group of peaceful protesters and SCLC, who had set up voting registrations, were attacked. The event reached the attention of King who moved towards action. He organized a 54-mile march from Selma to Mongomery. The march was faced with violence from various groups who opposed them, but under the protection of the National Guard, they reached Mongomery after walking for three days around the clock. That August the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed as the 15th Amendment, guaranteeing rights for African American voters.

Poor People’s Campaign

After the events of Selma and Mongomery, King agreed to broaden his scope of influence to the Vietnam War and poverty. In 1967 King and the SCLC began the Poor People’s Campaign. A program to protest current employment laws that made it difficult for some to get a job and for the housing problem of the poorer communities in America. Their plan of action included a march on Washington DC, just as they had done years earlier. But tragedy would soon strike.

Assassination

In 1968, King traveled to Memphis to support a sanitation worker’s strike. But on the evening of April 4th, as the clock struck 6:05 PM, he was shot in the neck from a hotel balcony. King was rushed to a hospital, but to no avail; he was pronounced dead an hour later. The death of King would send a wave of shock and anger through the American nation. One-hundred cities were looted and burned in the name of vengeance for his life. President Lyndon B. Johnson pleaded with the people to refrain from violence over his death, reminding them of King’s disgust of violence and calling him an “apostle of nonviolence.”. On June 8th, authorities arrested James Earl Ray. Ray was a small-time criminal who had stolen from gas stations and stores, only having been to prison once in Illinois and twice in Missouri. After testing, his fingerprints were matched to the same ones on the gun and binoculars used to assassinate King. On March 10th, Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of the famous minister. Ray found mercy and sympathy in strange places though, even after his trial. King’s son, Dexter, argued to reopen Ray’s case to prove his innocence, but the government refused. Even Corretta Scott said,

“America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray’s trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination…as well as establish the facts concerning Mr. Ray’s innocence.”

What then?

So, now that the history of Martin Luther King Jr.’s phenomenal life lay before you, can we answer the question of who this man was? I would venture to say no. For the past conceals the stories of those who pass into it. Though we may never fully know who this man was we can know, learn, and enjoy the benefits of what he did. The example he set for protest in America and how to properly exercise our First Amendment rights. We can learn from his display of godly character and determination. We can benefit from the change that he inspired in our great nation. And we can carry on his story so others can learn from him too.

But I say to you, love your enemies

and pray for those who persecute you, - Matthew 5:44

Videos

I Have a Dream Speech, Martin Luther King Jr.