Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King is ArrestedFor travelling 30 mph in a 25 mph zone.

Timeline of his Life1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama

Rosa Parks - 1955

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white - she was arrested and fined $14.00.

7Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat whites only on the bus to a white she was arrested. Dr. King organized a boycott (with Reverend Ralph Abernathy) by blacks of public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama on Dec. 5, 1955 for more than a year.This and other actions of civil disobedience helped black Americans gain Civil Rights.

A seamstress tired and on her way home from work had her own thoughts about right and wrong - Her name was Rosa Parks. She was coming home from work and was tired. Physically tired and mentally tired of the humiliating segregation policies of the time. The Montgomery, Alabama bus system had a policy that stated "Negro's must ride in the back of the bus and Whites would ride in the front. In the event that a white person did not have a seat - a Negro was required to give up his or her seat. This was one such day and Rosa refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. The bus driver called the police and Rosa Parks was arrested and released on $100 bond. Jo Ann Robinson and others called for a boycott of the bus system.

Influenced by GandhiNonviolent Civil Disobedience

The government lies about Martin Luther King Jr. to attempt to stop him from fighting back against racial discrimination.Reverend King1948February 25 Dr. King is ordained to the Baptist ministry and appointed associate pastor at Ebenezer.June 8Dr. King graduates from Morehouse College with a BA degree in Sociology.

SeptemberDr. King enters Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. After hearing Dr. A. J. Muste and Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson preach on the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he begins to study Gandhi seriously and follow his teaching of civil disobedience.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X

I Have A Dream Today Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?-- Martin L. King "Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers."Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence."Malcolm X

Racial Demonstrations 1960 Olympics

Black Panthers Demonstrate onthe winners podium of the Olympic games. The messageWas Black Power ThroughViolence from the teaching ofMalcolm X and theNation of Islam

This was against Dr. Kings message of Peaceful Nonviolent Protest through Disobedience13Two ideas on race relations existed: Martin Luther King Jr. believed in passive resistance to make social change while Malcolm X wanted militant black power through violence. Malcolm X started the Black Panthers and was a member of the Black Muslim faith, Nation of Islam. These athletes in the 1960 Olympics showed solidarity with the Black Panthers and refused to cross their heart to honor their country. The black glove showed support for the Black Panthers.

Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his efforts on civil rights bases on nonviolent disobedience. His efforts were rewarded with the segregation laws of the South being declared unconstitutional and rights for blacks to vote.Recognition for Dr. King

The Nobel Prize for PeaceTIME Magazine Man of the YearI Have a Dream Speech 1963

15Hear Dr. Kings I Have a Dream speech at timeforkids.com/dream

In 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC Dr. MLK Jr. gave his famous I Have a Dream speech to over 250,000 people!

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, 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. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of the revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plain of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force; and the marvelous new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we talk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality; we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of cities; we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one; we can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only;' we cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No! no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi. Go back to Alabama. Go back to South Carolina. Go back to Georgia. Go back to Louisiana. Go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.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, 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 - one day right there 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 exalted and 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.'This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we shall be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "my country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountain side, let freedom ring.' And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire; let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado; let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia; let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

April 4, 1968

Dr. King is Assassinated in Memphis16On April 4, 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated here at the Lorraine Hotel, just a day after speaking at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ. Built in 1925, the Lorraine Hotel was a typical Southern hotel accessible only to whites in its early history. However, by the end of World War II, the Lorraine had become a black establishment which had among its early guests Cab Colloway, Count Basie, and other prominent jazz musicians, in addition to later celebrities such as Roy Campanella, Nat King Cole, and Aretha Franklin. Partly because of its historical importance to the black community of Memphis, Martin Luther King chose to stay at the Lorraine during the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike. King, Abernathy, Andrew Young and other black leaders had come to Memphis to support 1,300 striking sanitation workers. Their grievances included unfair working conditions (on rainy days, black workers had to return home without pay while paid white supervisors remained on the job, and black workers were given only one uniform and no place in which to change clothes), and poor pay (the highest-paid black worker could not hope to earn more than $70 a week). Following a bloody confrontation between marching strikers and police, a court injunction had been issued banning further protests. King hoped their planned march would overturn the court injunction, but such plans were cut short on April 4, 1968 when an assassin shot and killed King on the balcony of King's room in the motel addition of the hotel. In 1991, the Lorraine Hotel was converted into the National Civil Rights Museum.

Source: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/tn2.htm

National Day of Remembrance

President Ronald Reagan signs MLK Day into Law18President Ronald Reagan signs into law a National Day for remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.How will YOU make a Difference?

Thank you Dr. KingAmerica is a better placeBecause of you.Free at Last, Free at LastThank God Almighty, Im free at Last-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Pride (In The Name Of Love)U2The Unforgettable Fire, track 2/10, disc 1/11984Progressive Rock229709.3eng - iTunNORM 00000F89 00000370 00004FF1 00001A7D 0002F0C1 0002A5C1 00006B93 00006FB1 0002DDC6 0000AA00eng - iTunes_CDDB_IDs10+7769DD261FD14C5C8D74C711D07ED89E+796407