A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 21, 2008
(Long Island, N.Y.) As business as usual takes a break for the day, Long Island remembers Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, was one of the main leaders of the American civil rights movement. King was the son of a Reverend and became a Baptist minister, one of the few leadership roles available to black men at the time. He became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott between 1955 and 1956 and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president.
His efforts also led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Here he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest speakers in U.S. history. More than a quarter million people of diverse ethnicities attended the event, sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the National Mall and around the reflecting pool. At the time, it was the largest gathering of protesters in Washington’s history. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech electrified the crowd. It is regarded, along with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as one of the finest speeches in the history of America.
Throughout his career of service, King wrote and spoke frequently, drawing on his experience as a preacher. On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United States.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Some have speculated that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of Martin Luther King’s death, had been used as a patsy similar to the way that alleged John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have been. Some of the claims used to support this assertion are that Ray’s confession was given under pressure, and he had been threatened with the death penalty and/or that Ray was a thief and a burglar but he had no record of committing violent crimes.
In 2004, Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the time of his death, stated: “The fact is there were saboteurs to disrupt the march. [And] within our own organization, we found a very key person who was on the government payroll. So infiltration within, saboteurs from without and the press attacks. …I will never believe that James Earl Ray had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself. Our government was very involved in setting the stage for and I think the escape route for James Earl Ray.” Martin Luther King’s son Dexter King has met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray’s efforts to obtain a retrial.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal giving him both the two highest civilian awards in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a national holiday in the United States in 1986.
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