Monday, January 20, 2014

Martin Luther King Jr. in his own words (video)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow.org
Historian on the March on Washington and the Kennedys’ aversion to MLK’s struggle

 
MLK Jr., born Michael in 1929, was assassinated at age 39 on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was a Protestant minister, Ph.D., Nobel laureate, and cheated on his wife rather being the saint many attempt to portray him as. While he is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, Dr. King was also a fierce critic of military-industrial U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War as well as U.S. genocides in Laos and Cambodia. He also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Let us listen to his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, delivered at New York City’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, as well as his last speech, "I Have Been to the Mountain Top," which he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before [the government] assassinated him.
 
Malcolm X Day 2015
(Daily Kos) Today (Jan. 20th), is the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We now have an entire generation who has grown up in the United States with this holiday... But there has been a lot of racist resistance to it. There is a government sponsored Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, which mentions, "After a long struggle, legislation was signed in 1983 creating a federal holiday marking the birthday" though his actual birth date was Jan 15, 1929.

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