Christian Peterson reporter.riverbendnews@gmail.com
“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.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
The third Monday of January is an important holiday across the United States, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, customarily shortened to MLK Day. The federal holiday was named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most prominent voices in nonviolent activism during the Civil Rights Movement. This year, MLK Day falls on Monday, Jan. 20. But who was King? Why is there an entire holiday dedicated in his name? What did he do to deserve this honor?
King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Ga., to Michael King Sr. and Alberta King. In 1893, long before King was born, his grandfather, Adam Daniel Williams, moved to Atlanta and became the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, starting a long trend for the King family and their involvement with the church. Very quickly, after marrying Alberta, Michael King Sr. became the assistant pastor of the same church. Then, within the year, he became the senior pastor. The first recorded incident of discrimination that King experienced in his life was in 1935 when he was just 6 years old. He befriended a White boy; however, when the pair started school, they were segregated into separate schools. Soon after the separation, the parents of the White boy no longer allowed him to play with King. This is really the first interaction that King had with blatant racism to public knowledge. He would, in fact, later say that the incident made him “determined to hate every White person.” However, his parents refuted this point, instructing him that it was his Christian duty to love everyone.
King witnessed many other cases throughout his childhood. However, the most influential person was his father, who not only brought him up as a Christian, but also stood up against segregation and discrimination. This included interactions with police, shopkeepers and even leading a civil rights march.
In high school, King became known for his public speaking. He took part in the school’s debate team and, after graduating, began to focus on English and sociology as his major. He had an impressive vocabulary but struggled with spelling. He would ask his sister, Christine, for help with spelling while he assisted her with math. King began attending Morehouse College when he was just a junior in high school. However, before he started higher education, he took a trip with some friends to Simsbury, Conn. It was his first trip to the integrated north. “On our way here, we saw some things I had never anticipated to see,” King wrote in a letter to his father. “After we passed Washington, there was no discrimination at all. The White people here are very nice. We go to any place we want to and sit anywhere we want to.” Later, King would return to school, f inally deciding on a career in ministry.
Due to how recent the civil rights movement is in history, many details about King’s life have been revealed. If all were to be included in this article, it would be the length of a book. Especially since multiple books have been written about him. Therefore, let’s fast forward to some of his activities as a social activist. In 1957, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Joseph Lowery, King and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, inspired by Billy Graham and his evangelist crusades. King would remain the leader of this conference until he died.
King was a staunch defender of peaceful revolution, openly calling for no violence. However, due to his prominence, he often found himself the victim of violent actions. In 1958, King was signing copies of his book when Izola Curry, a mentally ill Black woman, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. The first recorded physical violence he experienced, interestingly, had nothing to do with his stance on race relations. Instead, Curry stabbed him because she thought he was a communist.
Eventually, after many years of travel, King made his way back to Atlanta. He remained there as co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church his father and grandfather pastored. In October of 1960, King was invited to a sit-in to highlight that the ongoing presidential campaigns had ignored civil rights. King, along with many other protestors, were arrested during the protest. However, all the protestors outside of King were released from prison the very next day. This action brought a lot of attention nationwide, prompting a response from John F. Kennedy, one of the presidential candidates, resulting in King’s release from prison.
In total, King was arrested 29 times. His influence on race relations in the United States is almost unequivocable. King argued for peace, justice and hope for all Americans, regardless of the color of their skin. Sadly, on March 29, 1968, King traveled to Memphis, Tenn., in support of Black sanitation workers. He was hoping to get proper pay that the employees had not received despite their White counterparts being paid properly. On April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray fatally shot King.
No matter what has happened since the death of King, his dream remains true: an America where the color of a person's skin does not matter, but the content of their character does. It is a dream that great strides have been made towards. Many generations now don’t even remember the time of segregation, and no one alive today remembers slavery. Let’s continue to bring about the dream of a man who advocated nothing but good for everyone.