I'm starting this topic in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968). Tomorrow, in the United States, we will be celebrating his birthday as a national holiday. Help me make this the longest thread in history by posting your reasons why you think he is great or "just okay". Peace, prosperity and love.
Heres some life into this thread::: Quick Facts: Martin was no dummy in High School he skipped the 9th and 12th grade and entered Morehouse College at the age of fifteen! He graduated their with a bachelors degree in sociology. He married his wife and had five children becoming a pastor at a Baptist church in Alabama. Just one year later Martin Luther King couldn’t stand still so he went back to school at Boston University and received his PH.D in Philosophy. President Nixon and Martin Luther King Jr. started the Montgomery boycott. Martin Luther King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Foundation which was made up civil rights activists Martin Luther King wanted to spread his word of civil rights to the north so he left in charge Jesse Jackson in the south of their organization. I really praise Martin Luther King Jr. for influencing people like Jesse Jackson who is a well know figure today in politics. Jesse has been enforcing equal rights well through the 1990s and 2000s
One can only speculate the present day were Dr. King still at the Pulpit. The fact also is his presence being felt today by the accomplishments of the African community and all others affected as demonstrated by the fact a person of African dissent has been elected the leader of the nation Dr. King lost his life for, for such a realization.
Wow. I didn't know former president Nixon was co-founder of the Montgomery bus boycott. Securesite, could you provide evidence in support of this. Jesse Jackson owe his success to MLK.
Here I thought Jesse Jackson owed his success to the perpetuation of a victim mentality amongst black people. It disgusts me to even mention his name in the same breath as MLK. If your looking for modern day black leaders, you'd be better off referencing Bill Cosby or Charles Payne.
That just means your way out of the loop with Martin Luther King... Martin Luther King entrusted Jesse Jackson to run his Southern Christian Foundation in the south when he went up north to fix problems. He was working hand in hand with Martin Luther King Jr. back in the day. King with President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 His major start to protest of the equality of African Americans was the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. In Montgomery Alabama a black fifteen year old girl Claudette Colvin refused to give of her seat to a white man under the Jim Crow Laws. Martin Luther King was on a committee for the African American Community at the time. He wanted to wait for another case to have more evidence. It was later in 1955 that Rosa Parks an elder woman was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white man on the bus. This was all the evidence the President Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. needed to plan a boycott. It lasted 385 days and at one point it became so intense that Martins house was bombed. He never gave up and was also arrested which led to a court case that ended racial segregation on Montgomery buses. Martin ended segregation on the buses by waiting for the right opportunity and not using lethal actions to make it work. He even met with President Lydon Johnson at that time to organize it. He was one educated man and I admired his plans to none violence equality. MEANT TO SAY LYDON JOHNSON NOT NIXON!
And King Richard entrusted the rule of England to his brother John. That didn't stop John from running the country into the ground. People like Jackson and Sharpton are parasites that feed on the misfortune of black people, in the same way the Democratic party feeds off of poor people. Elimination of poverty= Elimination of the Democratic party. Can you think of any leader who genuinely wants to shrink his organization and put himself out of work? Sharpton and Jackson would keep people of the black race viewing themselves as helpless victims for all eternity. You should listen to Bill Cosby some time. He calls it like it is. There are many great black role models out there like Condi Rice and Charles Payne, or Barrack Obama and Colin Powell if you like socialists and lefties.
It was an accurate assertion. Mentioning either of these despicable ingrates in the same thread as MLK is deplorable. There's absolutely no comparison with regard to leadership and the fight for civil rights.
@ obamanation - In 1997 I wrote an editorial on Bill Cosby discussing his activism days and his effectiveness as a leader. Yeah Cosby is a pretty good role model but there is alot of good things about Cosby that most are unaware. Jesse Jackson is viewed as a heartless opportunist and Sharpton is what Sharpton is. MLK is worth studying even from the Black nationalist standpoint. There are other interesting aspects of King's career that needs to be publicly discussed that go along way in educating the newer generations who only think of King as the one who gave the "I Have A Dream" speech.
I'm surprised that with all these threads nobody expresses interest in demanding justice for his death when Martin's own family believes the murder wasn't executed as officially presented. NPR’s Debbie Elliott reports that yesterday a Tennessee jury found that the 1968 assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the result of a murder conspiracy, and not the act of a lone gunman. The king family sued Loyd Jowers, a retired Memphis businessman who claimed six years ago that he paid someone other than confessed killer James Earl Ray to kill civil rights leader. http://eddieleaks.org/2011/01/14/king-assassination-was-a-conspiracy-no-theory/ Host of Air America’s Clout, Richard Greene, bravely hosts the author of An Act of State, William Pepper, who represented James Earl Ray on behalf of the Martin Luther King family and is now representing RFK patsy Sirhan Sirhan. http://eddieleaks.org/2011/01/15/an-encore-presentation-for-mlk-day/ All of this appears to be a festival of lip service to me. If there was real interest in MLK and his legacy, one would think that there was some sign of desire to get to the bottom of what happened the day he was killed. LBJ also once stated: “I’ll have them niggers voting Democrat for the next two hundred years.†so putting him and MLK together appears sort of strange to me. Anyways, guess this is more or less of a feel good thread with not too much significance attached
42 years after the fact there is more information available concerning the murder of MLK. The question is why do most people accept that James E. Ray was the lone assassin?
For the same reason nobody believes the official version of the Kennedy assassination, yet everyone believes having the official version not challenged would be in the best interest of the country.
[video=youtube;OC1Ru2p8OfU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OC1Ru2p8OfU[/video] Exactly one year to the date after this speech his assassination took place. More: History: Bobby Kennedy planned for Martin Luther King, Jr. to become his running mate