It’s 2018 and a new year allows for a new time to remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy and birthday.
His legacy continues to live on, in spite of modern-day hate crimes and killings.
As Americans, we continue to suffer from civil unrest. Black women and men unfortunately continue to fall prey to racism.
Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile are victims of police brutality. In spite of systematic racism, Dr. King’s legacy of “let freedom ring” continues to resonate.
Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, GA. King, is recognized as the godfather of the civil rights movement. An orchestrator of (nonviolent) Social Change for Black people, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a force in the African American History.
From Presidents John F. Kennedy’s and Lyndon B. Johnson, to President Barack Obama (the nations first Black leader), to President Donald Trump, King’s legacy still fights for civil justice.
Dr. King changed America and still inspires us to look beyond race, social and class status.
1947 – Martin Luther King delivered his first sermon at the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Ebenezer’s congregation voted to license King as a minister soon afterward, and he was ordained in February 1948.
1956 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and fellow activist and wife Coretta Scott King pictured with their daughter Yolanda.
Dr. King and wife Coretta Scott King are together, leaving court, the same year, after he was found guilty in 1956.
1958 – Dr. Martin Luther King wrote his first book, “Stride Toward Freedom” is published, recounting his recollections of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. While King is promoting his book in a Harlem bookstore, an African American woman stabs him.
1961 – Freedom rides begin from Washington, D.C: Groups of Black and White people ride buses through the South to challenge segregation.
1963 – An estimating 25,000 civil rights supporters attend the March on Washington, for jobs and freedom at the Lincoln Memorial as Dr. King presents his legendary “I Have A Dream” speech.
The same year, the King family: Coretta Scott King, captured with Martin Luther King III (5 years old), Dexter Scott (2 years old), Yolanda Denise (7 years old). sit with three of their four children in their Atlanta, Ga, home, on March 17, 1963. From left are: Martin Luther King III, 5, Dexter Scott, 2, and Yolanda Denise, 7.
1964 – King wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
King followed with the historical Selma to Montgomery March this year. In January, he registered voters at the Hotel Albert in Selma, Alabama. Although, he was assaulted by National States Rights Party activist, James George Robinson in Birmingham, King carried on, fighting for the right for Blacks to vote.
1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr. The son of an Ebenezer Baptist Church delivers his last Sunday sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.
