MLK Day

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• 1-12-18
  

  Why Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy Are More Relevant Now than They Have Been in Years

  by Walter G. Moss

  We sorely need to be reminded of what they stood for.

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• SOURCE: Bozeman Daily Chronicle
  5-24-17
  

  Bozeman schools prefer kids in class on MLK Day

  As more families from other states move to Bozeman, some parents are surprised or upset to learn that kids here don’t get a holiday from school on Martin Luther King Day.

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• SOURCE: NYT
  1-16-17
  

  A New Martin Luther King Jr. Parade Divides a Virginia Town

  King's birthday falls within days of the birthdays of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, an awkward time for towns like Lexington, which celebrates all three.

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• SOURCE: ABC News
  1-15-17
  

  Trump Changes Plans on MLK Day Visit To African American History Museum

  Trump is expected to visit the museum sometime after he assumes office, the sources say.

• SOURCE: NYT
  1-21-13
  

  Diane McWhorter: Good and Evil in Birmingham

  Diane McWhorter is the author of “Carry Me Home.”FIFTY years ago, Birmingham, Ala., provided the enduring iconography of the civil rights era, testing the mettle of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so dramatically that he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.During his protest there in May 1963, the biblical spectacle of black children facing down Public Safety Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Connor’s fire hoses and police dogs set the stage for King’s Sermon on the Mount some four months later at the Lincoln Memorial. And the civil rights movement’s “Year of Birmingham” passed into history as an epic narrative of good versus evil.

• SOURCE: WaPo
  1-20-13
  

  Debate swirls over Martin Luther King’s monumental ‘content of their character’ quote

  “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”This sentence spoken by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has been quoted countless times as expressing one of America’s bedrock values, its language almost sounding like a constitutional amendment on equality.Yet today, 50 years after King shared this vision during his most famous speech, there is considerable disagreement over what it means.The quote is used to support opposing views on politics, affirmative action and programs intended to help the disadvantaged. Just as the words of the nation’s founders are parsed for modern meanings on guns and abortion, so are King’s words used in debates over the proper place of race in America....

• SOURCE: AP
  1-21-13
  

  Martin Luther King Jr. honored as Obama, nation’s first black president, sworn in to new term

  ATLANTA — The youngest daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. hailed the inauguration of the nation’s first black president to a new term as one of the achievements made possible by the civil rights struggle her father helped lead decades ago.Bernice King spoke at an Atlanta service Monday on the federal King holiday, urging Americans to draw inspiration from her slain father’s nonviolent campaign after a difficult year of military conflicts abroad and natural disasters at home.“We pray that this day will be the beginning of a new day in America,” she said. “It will be a day when people draw inspiration from the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. It will be a day when people realize and recognize that if it were not for Dr. King and those who fought the fight fought in that movement, we would not be celebrating this presidency.”...

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• Understanding the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

  by Robin Lindley

  Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King in 1964.In 1985, Dr. Clayborne Carson, a professor of history at Stanford University, received a phone call that changed his life. Coretta Scott King called and asked if he would edit the papers of her late husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Carson was initially reluctant, but eventually agreed to take on the monumental task. He has been studying the life of this American icon ever since. Under Dr. Carson’s direction, the King Papers Project has issued six volumes of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., -- a projected fourteen-volume edition of King’s most significant speeches, sermons, correspondence, publications, and unpublished writings.

• SOURCE: WaPo
  1-18-13
  

  Inauguration of first black president, federal holiday honoring King come to rare intersection

  ATLANTA — President Barack Obama plans to use a Bible that belonged to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as he takes his oath of office, a powerful symbol of this year’s rare intersection of the civil rights movement and the nation’s first black president.Monday is both Inauguration Day and the federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader. It is only the second time the two have fallen on the same day. Some say it’s only fitting the celebrations are intertwined.“It’s almost like fate and history coming together,” said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who worked alongside King in the fight for civil rights during the 1950s and ‘60s and plans to attend the inauguration. “If it hadn’t been for Martin Luther King Jr., there would be no Barack Obama as president.”...

• SOURCE: WaPo
  1-15-13
  

  MLK's dream still not fulfilled, son says

  As he looked across a room filled with civil rights veterans, White House officials and leaders from corporate America, Martin Luther King III said that the issues his father championed and died for have yet to be fulfilled in many communities across the country.“My heart is heavy today! A people who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat their mistakes,” said King, who spoke at a luncheon in the District, sponsored by the National Action Network, that was held on what would have been his father’s 84th birthday.The Rev. Al Sharpton, the group’s president, hosted events in Washington and New York on Tuesday in honor of the slain civil rights leader, but he told community leaders to beware of reducing King’s legacy to the commemorative events held around his birthday.“Martin Luther King can’t be reduced to a ceremony,” Sharpton said....

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• HNN Hot Topics: Martin Luther King, Jr.

  The best of web commentary on the man and his legacy.