Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think he obviously made great and continuous contributions to the nation, in the realms of equality. that's a sum up....However:
My oldest daughter will be 5 next month, and I feel she's at the age to know why she's not in school today. I, along with my husband, showed her a cartoon and explained to her in easy to understand terms that he is a large part of the reason that she and a good friend of her's Diana, can go to school and play together...

If you have kids, how did you explain it, when did you explain? did you ever explain?

Blimey - he had a huge effect here.

He (and the other supporters of the equal rights movement in the USA) crystallized the tactics of the Aboriginal equal rights movement - the late Charles Perkins and many other Aboriginal leaders instituted freedom rides here, and went on to change the position of Aboriginal people here - not nearly enough, yet, but hey... (there were many Aboriginal activists before that time - from the very beginnings of white invasion - but this was a new and stirring phase.)

As a child at the time, I knew all about injustices and prejudices experienced by African Americans, while having only the vaguest idea about how awful the experience of Australian Aborigines was - I was horrified when I realised what had happened here, and stirred deeply by the freedom rides and so on that happened.

The example of the movement he helped form - with its roots in Gandhi's ideas, and its current flowering in the achievements of the ANC and Mandela (imperfect as all these are) has been of huge impact, I think.

Probably too early to judge its impact on history, and I suppose nobody will ever agree....

Deb and Onyx.Gandhi; then Thoreau; then King. I wasn't aware that King had such a lasting effect on the Australian aborigine.

There is much speculation about who pulled the trigger that brought King down, but with that speech, "I've been on the mountain top", he knew something was in the works. My erudite friend said that it had to do with J.Edgar Hoover, but that's immaterial, I think.

As for defining history--one of my black students said that she would like to do a research paper on King. When I asked her why, I was stunned to find out that she knew absolutely nothing about the man.

America has come a long way since then, as has the rest of the world.

Here is the "Mountain top speech":

http://www.drmartinlutherkingjr.com/promised.htm

WOW!

Onyxelle, interesting, I got all tongue-tied this morning. I told sozlet, today is a special day, Martin Luther King day. He was a very important and very special man. (Little eyes looking at me expectantly, run through all of the options of what I could say about why he was important and special -- "He helped black people..." why did he help them? Why did they need help? Is it past tense? Are the injustices over? Etc.) Ended up chickening out, saying again, "A very special man." Not a stellar performance.

What, if anything, do you plan on saying to your 3-year-old?

(Btw, today is in observance of his birthday, not his assassination, right?)

Soz, It a National Holiday...that's all.

A funny anecdote:

My musician friends wanted to buy some booze and the pop shops were closed. so they crossed the state line into Virginia, figuring that the stores would be open. When they arrived at the store, the sign read: Closed in observance of Lee/Jackson day. One looked at the other and said:

Who is Lee Jackson? I do believe that marks a first in Virginia.

Before I reached the age of 20, I spent most of my life in and around Northern California. As a enlisted man in the US Air Force, I was stationed in Morocco for one year in the late fifties, and upon our return landed at Charleston, South Carolina. This was the very first time I came across water fountains and toilets for "blacks." I'm not sure how much progress this country would have had without Martin Luther King, Jr., but his impact has been great. Gandhi followed what he learned by reading Thoreau, and King followed Gandhi in nonviolent demonstrations to gain equality. MLK Jr accomplished equality for more than just blacks, but many will miss this accomplishment. When a society has any of its people with unequal treatment, all people of that society are lacking equality. When I visited MLK Jr's tomb in November of 2000, I paid my respects. I consider him one of the great Americans who was instrumental in advancing equality for all Americans.

In my view, Martin Luther King belongs in the same hierarchy with the founding fathers - a bit of a late comer is all. As a boy in California I was partially shielded from the hate between various races: In Fresno the schools I attended were fully integrated. About a third of students in my school were black, another third Mexican, and the final third a mix of Okie immigrants, Portugese, Japanese, Armenien, and I don't really know what else. But we moved from there to Texas in January of 1957. There I saw first hand the seperate facilities for black and white and witnessed black people approach the back of restaurants and eat at a table back there. Then I heard of Martin Luther King and the sit ins. I said to myself, "It's about time."
And when I left home in 1962 I bided my time and finally began to join civil rights demonstrations. Unfortunately, I was not ever close enough to hear Dr. King speak. But I heard bits of his speaches and read papers he wrote. I miss the days when we had men like him.

Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but what do you think would happen if he lived today? He had numerous affairs, for example.

What worries me most is that there may BE men (and women) like him who are unable to do their thing because of the current media/ political climate.

C.I., regardless of the fact that the South has been given a bad rap, some true, some not so true, we must recognize that only about 2% of the people owned plantations and slaves. That is true in many cultures, unfortunately.

In undergraduate school, I had a black professor that I adored. Know why? because the man was quite comfortable with using the black vernacular. I loved his quips.

"Man, give a German a gun and a Frenchman will throw up his hands."

Remember when you were concerned about the movie Pearl Harbor? It just turned out to be a very bad movie.

My friends, this thread was created to recognize a fallen leader...not to be politically correct, ok?

I love it when people speak out honestly.

We can't always correct the evils that abide in society, but we can damn well discuss them. Suffice it to say, that as long as this is an option, mankind will "...not only survive; he will prevail..." Faulkner

Letty, I'm not sure how one talks about Martin Luther King Jr by being non-political when discussing his accomplishments. The same goes for Gandhi.

Glad to see New Hampshire's come on line......



MLK Day, NH 1999

Only 2% owned slaves, but oppression was institutionalized and the poorest whites helped the richest whites to keep the black people down after the Civil War, all the way beyond the 1960s.

The 2% slavery owners number is meaningless. Slavery was outlawed, but bigotry and discrimination was on-going - even today.

Soz, my husband and I told my 5 year old (the 3 year old was there, and listening) that MLK was a ver great man. We let her watch the video, and she saw a mother snatch her children up from playing with the little black children. Of course, we knew she would ask questions, so we explained to her that when MLK was alive that a lot of people w/ white skin (as she calls it) did nt like people w/ brown skin. We told her that MLK helped people w/ brown skin & white skin be more friendly towards each other. Next year, will probably go more in depth w/ her. BTW, we had to use the word friendly b/c the cartoon has scenes of the firehoses being turned onto the adults as well as te children. friendly vs unfriendly.

I think it may still be Lee/Jackson/King Day in VA which would be a little wierd.
I strongly opposed making Dr King's birthday a national holiday. Not because I had any disrepect for him. Quite the contrary. Closing down the banks and the post office and the stock exchanges for yet another day didn't strike me as appropriate.
But I lost that battle. PC prevailed.
One of my employees is a young black lady actively involved in her church choir. They had a King weekend: singing at her church on Friday night; joining with a (predominantly) white congregation on Saturday night for a service; and culmininating Sunday with a 200-300 voice choir at our local high school.
I think that Dr King would have enjoyed seeing folks of different races and religions getting together like that rather than having the banks closed.
-rjb-

it's IS the observance of his birthday, but my husband says because it is the day of recognition, it should be taken to recognize the entirety of his life, not just the birth, but the living and the death as well.

Sozobe
Your question about MLK's sexual habits, were he alive today, could be asked about George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt and hundreds if not thousands of other famous men. It is only in the pettiness of a climate like the present that we seem bent on digging up as much dirt as possible. I seek no offense; I am not infering that you are petty, just pursuing the question a bit.