Today in the United States, the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are commemorated. Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929 and in the years prior to his assassination in 1968, Dr. King was a leading figure in the non-violent struggle to gain respect for the civil rights of African Americans across the United States, as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1964, Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, at the age of thirty-five. On April 4, 1968, he was assassinated while in Memphis, Tennessee to lead a workers’ protest. [Nobel Foundation; King Institute at Stanford University]
Best known for his role in mobilizing mass demonstrations and protests, Dr. King played an integral role in the 13 month-long Montgomery bus boycott which protested racial segregation on city buses in the American South following the arrest of Rosa Parks, inspired many with his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” , organized black voter registration drives, and led the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. [King Institute at Stanford University]
The civil rights community and its supporters endured threats, government surveillance, violence, police brutality, and imprisonment – and many lost their lives – but their efforts forced state and local governments to begin complying with court-ordered desegregation in public schools and transportation, and paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta [Georgia] and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham [Alabama]. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
-Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 19, 1963
Efforts to achieve social, racial and economic justice in the United States continue today, and face many challenges. Before the mid 20th century, changes in the country’s economy (most importantly, decreasing dependence on agriculture in favor of industry), changed where – and in what conditions – many Americans lived and worked. In neighborhoods throughout the country, racially-restrictive covenants required property owners to sell only to white buyers, until such covenants were declared unconstitutional in 1948. In recent decades, the consequences of under-funded public schools, discriminatory lending practices, disproportionate police contact, a reduced social safety net, de facto segregation in schools, and harsher criminal justice outcomes affecting African Americans can be seen as contributing to phenomena such as the “school to prison pipeline” and persistent wage inequality.
Organizations working towards social justice in the United States include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its affiliates, the NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law, MALDEF, the National Urban League, National Council of La Raza, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’
I have a dream that on day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
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. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor have his lips dripping with the words of ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification’, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day ‘every valley shall be exalted , and every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together’.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”, August 28, 1963.