Happy Birthday Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Thank You.

Posted on January 19, 2015 by rikyrah

Today is the official celebration of the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Look Back-1965 Selma March

The Google Doodle from today, and the explanation behind it.

MLK Day Google Doodle

Roxbury artist creates Google Doodle for MLK Day

By Linda Matchan
GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 19, 2015
One morning last month, Roxbury artist Ekua Holmes got an unexpected e-mail. The subject line: “Hello from the Google Doodle team!”

She didn’t know what a Google Doodle was, let alone that it had a whole team behind it. “I’m sure I’d seen them, but I didn’t know it was a whole thing,” she said.

She does now. On Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Holmes’s Google Doodle illustration honoring the civil rights leader is the featured image on Google’s US homepage. The collage depicts King walking arm in arm with fellow activists in Selma, Ala.

Most artists could only dream of such exposure. Traffic to the page is typically in the many millions. “It’s pretty astronomical [and] jaw-dropping,” said Ryan Germick, who leads Google’s Doodle-making team.

Holmes, a painter and collage artist who is not represented by a gallery, was shocked to be tapped for the project. “He said he found me somewhere on the Internet. Somewhere on the Internet? That’s like somewhere in the Himalayas,” said Holmes, 59, whose Roxbury home is about five blocks from where she grew up.

Some little known speeches from Dr. King.
Hat tip: isonprize:

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Two of His Children

This entry was posted in Civil Rights, Freedom, Inspiration, Institutional Racism, Jim Crow laws, Justice and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

55 Responses to Happy Birthday Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Thank You.

  1. Liza says:
    January 20, 2015 at 12:41 pm

    Excellent, newly discovered MLK speech from December, 1964. It was delivered after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, so this is quite a history lesson.

    Monday, January 19, 2015
    Exclusive: Newly Discovered 1964 MLK Speech on Civil Rights, Segregation & Apartheid South Africa

    “I want to talk with you mainly about our struggle in the United States and, before taking my seat, talk about some of the larger struggles in the whole world and some of the more difficult struggles in places like South Africa. But there is a desperate, poignant question on the lips of people all over our country and all over the world. I get it almost everywhere I go and almost every press conference. It is a question of whether we are making any real progress in the struggle to make racial justice a reality in the United States of America. And whenever I seek to answer that question, on the one hand, I seek to avoid an undue pessimism; on the other hand, I seek to avoid a superficial optimism. And I try to incorporate or develop what I consider a realistic position, by admitting on the one hand that we have made many significant strides over the last few years in the struggle for racial justice, but by admitting that before the problem is solved we still have numerous things to do and many challenges to meet. And it is this realistic position that I would like to use as a basis for our thinking together tonight as we think about the problem in the United States. We have come a long, long way, but we have a long, long way to go before the problem is solved.”

    More…

    http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/19/exclusive_newly_discovered_1964_mlk_speech

    Reply
    • yahtzeebutterfly says:
      January 21, 2015 at 5:05 pm

      So glad that they now have the transcript available!

      One excellent quotation from his speech:

      This is where I must leave Mr. Goldwater and others who believe that legislation has no place.

      It may be true that you can’t legislate integration, but you can legislate desegregation.

      It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated.

      It may be true that the law can’t change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.

      It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me.

      And I think that’s pretty important also.

      Reply
  3. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 19, 2015 at 11:06 pm

    Soldiers! This is how it’s done, baby! #Selma Montgomery March. 1965.

    Reply
  5. rikyrah says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:21 pm

    Pretty Foot @PrettyFootWoman
    Follow
    ‘Selma’ Director’s MLK Day Message: Don’t Be “Color-Blind” (Exclusive) http://j.mp/1Eezgib via @THR
    7:19 AM – 19 Jan 2015

    Reply
  6. eliihass says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:07 pm

    Sorry to sully this MLK post with this comment. But Donald Trump just lacks integrity. He’s already thrown Romney under the bus, lol. And to think that Just a little while ago they were bff’s. There’s nothing noble indeed about politics – or many a grown men and women.

    Reply
  8. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 19, 2015 at 7:41 pm

    Dr King called to America to be true to what you said on paper.

    Freedom of religion, America! ACT LIKE YOU KNOW! #MLKDay #MLK

    Reply
  13. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 19, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tells a Joke on “The Tonight Show” from 1968.

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      January 19, 2015 at 6:48 pm

      Such a lovely picture. I really wish their kids would honor their parents memories by stopping all that suing each other nonsense. It’s really embarrassing and takes away from all the good work their parents did.

      Reply
  19. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    January 19, 2015 at 11:41 am

    “Exclusive: Newly Discovered 1964 MLK Speech on Civil Rights, Segregation & Apartheid South Africa”

    http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/19/exclusive_newly_discovered_1964_mlk_speech?autostart=true
    “In a Democracy Now! and Pacifica Radio Archives exclusive, we air a newly discovered recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On December 7, 1964, days before he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, King gave a major address in London on segregation, the fight for civil rights and his support for Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa.

    The speech was recorded by Saul Bernstein, who was working as the European correspondent for Pacifica Radio. Bernstein’s recording was recently discovered by Brian DeShazor, director of the Pacifica Radio Archives.”

    Reply
    • yahtzeebutterfly says:
      January 19, 2015 at 1:20 pm

      I think this one of the BEST of Dr. King’s speeches!!!

      You will not be disappointed if you find the time and can listen to it.

      Reply
  20. yahtzeebutterfly says:
    January 19, 2015 at 11:37 am

    Thank you rikyrah, Ametia, and SG2 for your contributions to this page honoring Martin Luther King.

    He still speaks to us from the Mountaintop!

    Reply
  23. Ametia says:
    January 19, 2015 at 10:52 am

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoo3GEfhPwo

    Thank you, Rev. Barber for your contributions to Dr. king’s dream

    Reply
  25. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 19, 2015 at 10:33 am

    Dr. Martin Luther King: We will be the participants in a great building process that will make America a new nation.

    *goosebumps*

    Reply
  27. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 19, 2015 at 10:30 am

    Thank you, Dr King!

    Reply
  29. Ametia says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:51 am

    I’m going to see “Selma” again tonight.

    Reply
  31. Ametia says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:28 am

    Baldwin: “The country is only concerned about nonviolence, when I’m nonviolent.”

    Reply
  32. Ametia says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:27 am

    MLK: “Look in the dictionary. Black is always something dark and sinister. Look at the word white. it’s always something good and pure.” But I want to get the language right. I’m Black and I’m Proud.”

    Reply
  33. rikyrah says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:23 am

    Why Martin Luther King would support Pres. Obama’s Tax on Super-Rich
    By Juan Cole | Jan. 19, 2015 |

    In one of his last speeches, at Grosse Point, MI., the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., laid out his next campaign, the one he died pursuing. It was not about civil rights for minorities but economic rights for “the other America” (the title of a book by Michael Harrington that influence Pres. Johnson to launch the war on poverty).

    King said at Grosse Point:
    “…I want to use as a title for my lecture tonight, “The Other America.” And I use this title because there are literally two Americas. Every city in our country ha s this kind of dualism, this schizophrenia, split at so many parts, and so every city ends up being two cities rather than one. There are two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. In this America, millions of people have the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality flowing before them. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America children grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.

    But there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this other America, thousands and thousands of people, men in particular walk the streets in search for jobs that do not exist. In this other America, millions of people are forced to live in vermin-filled, distressing housing conditions where they do not have the privilege of having wa ll-to-wall carpeting, but all too often, they end up with wall-to-wall rats and roaches. Almost forty percent of the Negro families of America live in sub-standard housing conditions

    In this other America, thousands of young people are deprived of an opportunity to get an adequate education. Every year thousands finish high school reading at a seventh, eighth and sometimes ninth grade level. Not because they’re dumb, not because they don’t have th e native intelligence, but because the schools are so inadequate, so over-crowded, so devoid of quality, so segregated if you will, that the best in these minds can never come out. Probably the most critical problem in the other America is the economic probl em. There are so many other people in the other America who can never make ends meet because their incomes are far too low if they have incomes, and their jobs ar e so devoid of quality. And so in th is other America, unemployment is a reality and under-employment is a reality.

    King saw African-American unemployment as key to their being stuck in the Other America:

    “The unemployment rate on the basis of statistics from the labor department is about 8.8 per cent in the black community. But these statistics only take under consideration individuals who were once in the labor market, or individuals who go to employment offices to seek employment. But they do not take under consideration the thousands of people who have given up, who have lost motivation, the thousands of people who have had so many doors closed in their faces that they feel defeated and they no longer go out and look for jobs, the thousands who’ve come to feel that life is a long and desolate corridor with no exit signs. These people are considered the discouraged and when you add the discouraged to the individuals who can’t be calculated through statistics in the unemployment category, the unemployment rate in the negro community probably goes to 16 or 17 percent. And among black youth, it is in some communities as high as 40 and 45 percent.

    If anything the African-American real unemployment statistics are higher today than they were then. Here is a graph:

    http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/martin-support-obamas.html

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      January 19, 2015 at 9:40 am

      Yes MLK Jr. would support PBO. That’s why this nonsense about how LBJ was portrayed in “Selma” is some real bullshit.

      LBJ claims his priority was poverty and told MLK he had to wait for voting rights legislation. How the fuck can you claim poverty is a priority without securing voting rights for ALL AMERICANS, especially Blacks.

      How can you deny any American the right to vote, when it is their right from JUMP, the right to vote in a leader who will not do everything in his/her power to deny you basic human rights, i.e., a paying job, decent housing, safe transportation, decent food, decent health care, Due to the fact that you are not white and basically not even seen or treated as HUMAN.

      “LBJ” throwing around that “poverty was his priority” line was a tactic, not a strategy to say he and his admin were going to throw the poor negroes a few crumbs and bones, like they were wild animals, instead of actually helping them to secure their RIGHTS like white Americans to effing VOTE and help dismantle the White power structure.

      Dr. King knew their game, and he had a STRATEGY. When it comes to games, we know that strategy vs. tactics when out the majority of the time, if it’s a well-thought out one.

      PBO know this as well, and that is why he has been able to OUT-SMART the GOP.

      Reply
  34. Ametia says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:22 am

    Happy Birthday, Dr. King.
    Your contributions to America and the rest of the world are truly IMMEASURABLE.

    Reply
  35. rikyrah says:
    January 19, 2015 at 9:19 am

    Thank you, Dr. King.

    Reply

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