Martin Luther King Jr Day (18 January )

Martin Luther King Jr - By Martin Kelly, About.com Guide

History
Martin Luther King's Childhood and Education:

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, GA. His birth certificate listed his first name as Michael but this was later changed to Martin. His Grandfather and then his Father both served as the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. King graduated from Morehouse College in 1948 with a degree in Sociology. He further received a Bachelor's of Divinity in 1951 and then a Ph.D. from Boston College in 1955. It was in Boston where he met and later married Coretta Scott. They had two sons and two daughters together.

Becoming a Civil Rights Leader:

Martin Luther King, Jr. was appointed the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954. It was while serving as pastor of the church that Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. This occurred on December 1, 1955. By December 5, 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott had begun.

Montgomery Bus Boycott:
On December 5, 1955, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was unanimously elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which led the Montgomery Bus Boycott. During this time, African-Americans refused to ride the public bus system in Montgomery. King's home was bombed due to his involvement. Thankfully his wife and baby daughter who were home at the time were unharmed. King was then arrested in February on the charges of conspiracy. The boycott lasted 382 days. In the end on December 21, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation on public transportation was illegal.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference:
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was formed in 1957 and King was named its leader. Its goal was to provide leadership and organization in the fight for civil rights. He used the ideas of civil disobedience and peaceful protests based on the writings of Thoreau and the actions of Mohandas Gandhi to lead the organization and the fight against segregation and discrimination. Their demonstrations and activism helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a major part of many nonviolent protests as he helped lead the fight for desegregation and equal rights. He was arrested numerous times. In 1963, numerous "sit-ins" were staged in Birmingham, Alabama to protest segregation in restaurants and eating facilities. King was arrested during one of these and while he was imprisoned wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." In this letter he argued that only through visible protests would progress be made. He argued that it was an individual's duty to protest and in fact disobey unjusts laws.

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech:
On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington led by King and other Civil Rights Leaders took place. It was the largest demonstration of its kind in Washington, D.C. up to that time and approximately 250,000 demonstrators were involved. It was during this March that King gave his awe-inspiring "I Have a Dream" speech while speaking from the Lincoln Memorial. He and the other leaders then met with President John F. Kennedy. They asked for many things including an end to segregation in public schools, greater protections for African-Americans, and more effective civil rights legislation amongst other things.

Nobel Peace Prize:
In 1963, King was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year. He had stepped onto the world stage. He met with Pope Paul VI in 1964 and then was honored as the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded this on December 10, 1964 at the age of thirty-five. He gave the entire amount of the prize money to help with the Civil Rights movement.

Selma, Alabama:
On March 7, 1965, a group of protestors attempted a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. King was not part of this march because he had wanted to delay its start date until the 8th. However, the march was extremely important because it was met by terrible police brutality that was captured on film. The images of this made a huge impact on those not directly involved in the fight resulting in a public outcry for changes to be made. The March was attempted again and the protestors successfully made it to Montgomery on March 25, 1965 where they heard King speak at the Capitol.

Assassination:
Between 1965 and 1968, King continued with his protest work and fight for Civil Rights. King became a critic of the War in Vietnam. While speaking from a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. The day before he gave a poignant speech where he , "[God's] allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you." While James Earl Ray was arrested and charged with the assassination, there have been and still are questions to his guilt and whether there was a larger conspiracy at work
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Full Text of the "I have a dream speech " by Dr MLK Jr


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.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. 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. 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 tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of 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 plane 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. 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 that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, 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 the 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 a 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 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; 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, 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 will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will 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 together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a 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 mountainside, 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 heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

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, 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 of 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!"
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What Is Racism?

By Nadra Kareem, About.com Guide

What is racism, really? Today, the word racism is thrown around all the time by not only members of racial minority groups but by whites, too. Use of the term “racism” has become so popular that it’s spun off related terms such as “reverse racism,” “horizontal racism” and “internalized racism.”


Defining Racism

Let’s start by examining the most basic definition of racism—the dictionary meaning. According to the American Heritage College Dictionary, racism has two meanings. Firstly, racism is, “The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.” Secondly, racism is, “Discrimination or prejudice based on race.”

Examples of the first definition abound. When slavery was practiced in the United States, blacks were not only considered inferior to whites but regarded as property instead of human beings. During the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, it was agreed that slaves were to be considered three-fifths people for purposes of taxation and representation. Generally during slavery, blacks were deemed intellectually inferior to whites. This notion persists in modern-day America.

In 1994, a book called The Bell Curve posited that genetics were to blame for why African Americans traditionally score lower on intelligence tests than whites. The book was attacked by everyone from New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who argued that social factors were responsible for the differential, to Stephen Jay Gould, who argued that the authors made conclusions unsupported by scientific research. In 2007, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson ignited similar controversy when he suggested that blacks were less intelligent than whites.
Discrimination Today

Sadly, racism in the form of discrimination persists in society also. A case in point is that blacks have traditionally suffered from higher rates of unemployment than whites. In June 2009, black unemployment was 15.3 % compared to an 8.8% unemployment rate for whites. Do blacks simply not take the initiative that whites do to find work? Studies indicate that, in actuality, discrimination likely contributes to the black-white unemployment gap.

In 2003, researchers at the University of Chicago and MIT released a study involving 5,000 fake resumes that found that 10% of those featuring “Caucasian-sounding” names were called back compared to just 6.7% of those featuring “black-sounding” names. Moreover, resumes featuring names such as Tamika and Aisha were called back just 5% and 2% of the time. The skill-level of the faux black candidates made no impact on callback rates.


Can Minorities Be Racist?

Yes, of course. However, it’s important to note that because racial minorities in the U. S. have spent their lifetimes in a society that has traditionally valued whites over them, they are also likely to believe in the superiority of whites. It’s also worth noting that in response to living in a racially stratified society, people of color sometimes complain about whites. Typically, such complaints serve as coping mechanisms to withstand racism rather than as anti-white bias. Even when minorities are actually prejudiced against whites, they lack the institutional power to adversely affect whites’ lives.
Internalized Racism and Horizontal Racism

Internalized racism is when a minority believes that whites are superior. A highly publicized example of this is a 1954 study involving black girls and dolls. When given the choice between a black doll and a white doll, the black girls disproportionately chose the latter. In 2005, a teen filmmaker conducted a similar study and found that 64% of the girls preferred the white dolls. The girls attributed physical traits associated with whites, such as straighter hair, with being more desirable than traits associated with blacks.

What about horizontal racism? When this occurs, members of minority groups adopt racist attitudes towards other minority groups. An example of this would be if a Japanese American prejudged a Mexican American based on the racist stereotypes of Latinos found in mainstream culture.


Racism Myth: Segregation Was a Southern Issue

Contrary to popular belief, integration wasn’t universally accepted in the North. While Martin Luther King Jr. managed to march through a number of Southern towns during the Civil Rights Movement, a city he chose not to march through for fear of violence was Cicero, Ill. When activists marched through the Chicago suburb without King to address housing segregation and related problems, they were met by angry white mobs and bricks. Fast-forward to 1975 Boston. When a judge ordered city schools to integrate in 1974 by busing black and white schoolchildren into each other’s neighborhoods, white mobs pelted the buses with rocks.
Reverse Racism

“Reverse racism” refers to anti-white discrimination. It’s often used in conjunction with practices designed to help minorities, such as affirmative action. The Supreme Court continues to receive cases that require it to determine when affirmative action programs have created anti-white bias.

Social programs have not only generated cries of “reverse racism” but people of color in positions of power have also. A number of prominent minorities, including the biracial President Obama, have been accused of being anti-white. The validity of such claims is clearly debatable. They indicate, though, that as minorities become more prominent in society, more whites will argue that minorities are biased. Because people of color will surely gain more power over time, get used to hearing about “reverse racism.”
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In an effort to underscore national unity, in 1994 President Bill Clinton signed into law the King Holiday and Service Act, making the holiday not only Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but also the "King Day of Service," in which people nationwide are encouraged to dedicate a day to serving their community—to, as the bill phrases it, "take a day on, not a day off." In 2009, over a million people dedicated the day to helping others.

Plans for service, observance, or relaxation aside, today is a day for remembering a man who was both pastor and protestor, someone who knew the inside of the halls of power and the inside of a jail. It is interesting to note that of the four individuals honored with a US public holiday, three had a history of arrest: Christopher Columbus (arrested once), Jesus (once), and King (arrested 29 times). The fourth, George Washington, was (along with the rest of the Continental Army) declared a traitor by George III and therefore wanted for arrest during the Revolutionary War. He was never captured.
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James Earl Ray
Born March 10, 1928(1928-03-10), Alton, Illinois, USA
Died April 23, 1998 (aged 70)
Nashville, Tennessee
Conviction(s) Murder, prison escape,armed robbery, forgery
Penalty 99 years imprisonment
Status deceased
Spouse Anna Sandhu (divorced)
Parents James Gerald Ray

James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928–April 23, 1998) confessed to the assassination of American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, and pled guilty in legal proceedings, forgoing a jury trial. A habitual criminal, Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Later he recanted his confession and unsuccessfully tried to gain a trial. He died in prison of hepatitis C.

Early life
James Earl Ray came from a poor family in Alton, Illinois, and left school at age 15. He joined the US Army during World War II and served in Germany. In 1949, he was convicted of his first crime, a burglary in California.
In 1952 he served two years for armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud. After an armed robbery in Missouri in 1959, Ray was sentenced to 20 years as a habitual offender. In 1967, he escaped by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery.

Martin Luther King murder
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was staying at the Lorraine Motel (now known as the National Civil Rights Museum)in Memphis. He was shot and killed by a sniper while standing on the motel's second-floor balcony.

Capture and trial
A little more than two months after King's death, on June 8, 1968, Ray was captured at London's Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport. Alleged to have shot King, he was using the name of Ramon George Sneyd.[2] At the airport, officials noticed that Ray carried another passport under a second name. The US quickly extradited Ray to Tennessee and charged him with King's murder. He confessed to the crime on March 10, 1969. Although three days later Ray recanted his confession, he pled guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.On the advice of his attorney, Percy Foreman, Ray took a guilty plea to avoid a potential trial conviction, which could have led to sentence of the death penalty. The method of execution in Tennessee would have been electrocution.

Ray fired Foreman as his attorney and from then on derisively called him "Percy Fourflusher". He claimed a man he met in Montreal, who used the alias "Raoul", had been deeply involved, as was his brother Johnny, but not himself. Ray further asserted that although he didn't "personally shoot Dr. King," he may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. He spent the remainder of his life attempting unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a trial.

Escape
On June 11, 1977, Ray made his second appearance on the FBI Most Wanted Fugitives list, this time as the 351st entry. He and six other convicts had escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee on June 10, 1977. They were recaptured on June 13, three days later, and returned to prison.
A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, to total 100 years. Shortly after, Ray testified that he did not shoot King to the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Later developments
In 1997, King's son Dexter met with Ray, and publicly supported his efforts to obtain a retrial. Loyd Jowers, a restaurant owner in Memphis, was brought to civil court and sued as being part of a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King. Jowers was found legally liable, and the King family was awarded $100 in restitution. The amount was to show they were not pursuing the case for financial gain.

Dr. William Pepper, a friend of King in the last year of his life, represented Ray in a televised mock trial to try to get him the trial he never had. Pepper next represented the King family in a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers. The King family has now concluded that Ray did not have anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King.

Death
Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998, at the age of 70, from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C. He probably contracted the disease by a blood transfusion given after a stabbing while at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. Ray was survived by seven brothers and sisters. His brother Jerry Ray told CNN that his brother did not want to be buried or have his final resting place in the United States because of "the way the government has treated him." Ray was cremated and his ashes were flown to Ireland, home of his family's ancestors. ( from Wikipedia)