As I read through the wide variety of research for this entry, I was struck with the singular importance that today is more than a holiday, more than a date on the calendar, and that the significance and import of the message of Martin Luther King, Jr is still crucial to the health and prosperity of our country and world today. As I poured through the pages, I felt a longing in my heart for his influence were he alive today, proclaiming with peaceful determination for the eradication of racism and injustice once and for all. Had he lived until his 94th birthday, January 15, 2023, what would his impression be of the country of which we find ourselves in, this Trumpian-apocalypse of racism, bigotry, and demand for white supremacy running rampant.
Born Michael Luther King, Jr on January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, then later officially making the change to Martin, into a Christian family of pastoral lineage with the strong focus on social justice and morality. Although he was raised by a fairly well-to-do and educated Black family, Martin experienced the effects of racism through segregation from an early age, from being separated in different schools, being subjected to the back of the bus, and not being allowed to eat or drink with his white neighbors. When Martin entered Morehouse College in 1948, his first intention was to study medicine or law, but with the influence by both his father and the college president, Benjamin Mays, himself a social gospel activist, Martin decided to focus on the ministry and went to Crozer Theological Seminary, becoming president of his mainly white senior class. He, then, received his doctorate from Boston University. While in the North, he would marvel at the ability for whites and blacks to co-mingle at restaurants, a truly inspiring reality for him. It was during his studies at Boston University that he would meet his future wife, Coretta Scott, herself a highly intellectual and artistically talented woman, and they would give birth to four children.
In 1954, Martin became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Already a social justice activist and an executive member of the leading organization, the National Organization of the Advancement of Colored People, he would go on to accept and fulfill his duties as the leader of the first great Negro non-violent demonstration, the Bus Boycott, lasting 382 days inspired by infamous action of Rosa Parks.
In his movement and time as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin not only used the organization methods of Christianity, but was heavily inspired by the beliefs and actions of Gandhi, believing that peace was a stronger, longer lasting influence than violence. For eleven years, Martin traveled throughout the country speaking at many a protest against the injustice of racism and segregation and writing 5 books and numerous article on this need as well. In his time of action, he inspired the coalition of conscience leading to the Birmingham, Alabama massive protest, his "Letter from a Birmingham jail", he heavily influenced getting Negroes registered to vote, and orchestrated the peaceful March on Washington, DC where he shared his powerful "I have a dream" speech.
Throughout all of this, Martin was no stranger to the sufferings of personal abuse, physically assaulted 4 times, jailed 20 times, his home bombed, and the subject of continued persecution. Yet his foundation of hope for something better and his desire to end the injustice of racism led him to receive such worthy accolades as being the Time magazine "Man of the Year" in 1963, received 5 honorary degrees, and becoming the youngest man at 35 to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, of which he donated the entirety of the prize money to the civil rights movement.
Yet all of these did not persevere him from the violence and vitriol of bigotry, Martin Luther King, Jr's personal influence was taken from this world when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 on his hotel room balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was preparing a peaceful protest in support of the garbage worker strike. He was 39 years old.
However, 55 years after his death, he remains a strong and powerful force for the movement against racism, bigotry, and hatred for the American black and the entire world.
Articles used as research:
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