We must combine the
toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a
tender heart.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, 1963.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Jr. was born as Michael Luther King Jr. but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931. From 1960 until his death, Martin Luther King served as co-pastor to his father. Martin Luther attended black and white public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen. He received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, where both his father and grandfather graduated.
After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B. D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955.
In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.
Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954.
King was also a member of the committee of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the
most leading organizations of its kind in the nation. He was ready to accept the leadership of the first great Negro
nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the
bus boycott, described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor
of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after
the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the
laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as
equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was
bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he
emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.
In 1957 Martin Luther King was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now civil rights movement.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, when standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was also leading a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.
History of the Holiday:
Congressman John Conyers, Democrat from Michigan, first introduced legislation for a holiday four days after King was assassinated in 1968. After the bill became stalled, petitions allowing the holiday containing six million names were submitted to Congress.
Conyers and Rep. Shirley
Chisholm, Democrat of New York, resubmitted King holiday legislation each
subsequent legislative session. Public pressure for the holiday mounted
during the 1982 and 1983 civil rights marches in Washington.
Congress passed the holiday legislation in 1983, which was then signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. A compromise moving the holiday from Jan. 15, King's birthday, which was considered too close to Christmas and New Year's, to the third Monday in January helped overcome disagreement to the law.
A number of states did not want to celebrating the holiday.
Some people said King did not deserve his own holiday-contending that
the entire civil rights movement rather than one individual should be honored. Several southern states include
celebrations for various Confederate generals on that day. Arizona voters
approved the holiday in 1992 after a threatened tourist boycott. In 1999,
New Hampshire changed the name of Civil Right Day to Martin Luther King,
Jr., Day.
Quotes:
We are not makers of history. We are made by history. -From Strength to Love 1963
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.-From "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. -Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. -From Strength To Love, 1963
I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. -From "Rediscovering Lost Values," February 28, 1954
Find Out More about Martin Luther King Jr. by going to these sites:
Long Island University Tribute