Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968.

Inspired by advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi, King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest.

He was the driving force behind watershed events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington, which helped bring about such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and is remembered each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a U.S. federal holiday since 1986.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner continues to be remembered as one of the most lauded African-American leaders in history, often referenced by his 1963 speech, “I Have a Dream.”

Martin Luther King  Jr was in Ghana in 1957 to celebrate Ghana’s independence…

The photo above is of King and his wife Coretta Scott King at the independence celebration in Ghana in March 1957. Here is King speaking of that trip and the passing of the “old order” at Western Michigan University on December 18, 1963:

I can remember when Mrs. King and I first journeyed to Africa to attend the independence celebration of the new nation of Ghana. We were very happy about the fact there were now eight independent countries in Africa. But since that night in March, 1957, some twenty-seven new independent nations have come into being in Africa. This reveals to us that the old order of colonialism is passing away, and the new order of freedom and human dignity is coming into being.

 

But not only have we seen the old order in its international dimensions, we have seen it in our own nation in the form of slavery and racial segregation. We all know the long history of the old order in America. It had its beginning in 1619 when the first slaves landed on the shores of this nation. They were brought here from the soils of Africa. Unlike the Pilgrim fathers who landed at Plymouth a year later, they were brought here against their wills.

Today Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) would have been 86. Gone but not forgotten!

 

A True History Maker! 

Credit: okayafrica, the seattle ,Ghanaedu