The Memory
Dr. King changed times because one doesn’t have to succumb to Jim Crow Laws and read signs that display colored-only bathrooms, water fountains, schools, and seats on the bus.
African Americans and women can now vote thanks to the Voting Rights Act 1965, signed by President Lydon B. Johnson, but first initiated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yes, Christians did this with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC.
Ratified in 1870, The 15th Amendment allowed African American men to vote.
“In 1913, Ida B. Wells founded the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago, the nation’s first Black women’s club focused specifically on suffrage. After the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, Black women voted in elections and held political offices.”
19th Amendment was signed into law by former President Woodrow Wilson.
The Mountains
African Americans were not happy. Racism still existed! Dr. King moved a mountain to open the door, and what was that mountain? The March on Washington.
August 28th, 1963, The March on Washington, led by the President of the SCLC, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his Friends demanded the following, “(1) access to all public accommodations, (2) decent housing, (3) adequate and integrated education, and (4) the right to vote. Other demands included withholding Federal funds from all programs in which discrimination exists; a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers –black and white—on meaningful and dignified jobs with decent wages.”
Library of Congress
The six primary organizers and organizations for the March were: (1) James Farmer, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); (2) Reverend Martin Luther King, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); (3) John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), (4) A. Philip Randolph, President of the Negro American Labor Organization, (5) Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and (6) Whitney Young, Executive Director of the Urban League. These leaders of prominent civil rights organizations came together to commemorate the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and to call attention to the atrocities African Americans were still experiencing. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King gave his iconic “I Have a Dream,” speech on this occasion.
The Library of Congress
The Message
The Man
Please copy/paste or click on the link and watch the YouTube Birthday Video of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ENBJ-3C_lw
Reporter Jude 