Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day!!

Source: History

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States of America, the land of the free.  Martin Luther King is indescribable in certain ways for the outstanding and iconic influence which he had on our great nation during the 50's and 60's leading the civil rights movement.  Shown below are the first few paragraphs (introduction) of his 'Wikipedia' page to remind us of the unparalleled impact on our nation Martin Luther King Jr. exerted with his presence:

Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968. Born in Atlanta, King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.

King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and in 1957 became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). With the SCLC, he led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He also helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

On October 14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize the Selma to Montgomery marches. The following year, he and the SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War. He alienated many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam". J. Edgar Hoover considered him a radical and made him an object of the FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 on. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and on one occasion mailed King a threatening anonymous letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, and imprisoned, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents, persisted for decades after the shooting. Sentenced to 99 years in prison for King's murder, effectively a life sentence as Ray was 41 at the time of conviction, Ray served 29 years of his sentence and died from hepatitis in 1998 while in prison.

King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington State was also rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

Mr. King was a master at leading civil and nonviolent marches with millions in attendance at times.  The sheer number of protesters should be a badge in of itself for his ability to gather such an enormous momentum of protesters in any given geographical location.  Especially, in comparison to today where we have the use of social media and the internet to reach out to people (protesters).



His ability to reach large numbers and teach the workings of the bible in times of tremendous segregation was astounding.   Any civil leader since aspires to be like him or learn from his workings.  I decided to honor him today would be to post a few of his iconic 'quotes' which are used in many activists speeches and movements still to this day.  A list of a few famous quotes are shown below:

Source: Google

Here are the ten quotes listed below which are listed in the image above:



(1) "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."



(2) "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."



(3) "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."



(4) "The time is always right to do what is right."



(5) "Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last."



(6) "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."



(7) "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?"



(8) "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."



(9) "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."



(10) "Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless."




The profound effect on our great nation which Martin Luther King Jr. had cannot be overstated.  Without a doubt, a remarkable man he was and by laying a framework down with his life (included in that framework), he has gone down in history as one of our nation's greatest leaders (and teachers).  The world is not the same without great leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. -- as we see today.


Today, there is a large amount of divisiveness -- hatred, bigotry, racist behavior, etc. -- which should not be.   We, as a nation, learning from the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. should be far advanced (in progress) than we are today.  Unfortunately, we are currently residing in a nation which is run by a president who wishes to reverse all of the great achievements that teachers like Martin Luther King Jr. fought so hard to advance.



In light of this reality, let us take the day to reflect on this great leaders achievements and draw inspiration to move forward as a nation and reach out to those who wish to reverse the great lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. and understand them, embrace them, and share love, respect, and compassion with them in hope of progressing into the future toward the goals set by leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. 



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