Commemorative Program for Martin Luther King, Jr. (1989)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15th 1929. Throughout his life he was an advocate of civil rights and human rights for all people black white Jew or Gentile. On January 13th 1993 the city of Springfield human relations department coordinated this tribute to Dr. King. A man shot down in the prime of his life. We're not taking vacation in heaven. Here are so many taken vacation to the city and mountings others see why they risk from the cares and no worries. What a wonderful time that must be what is seem not mine a lot to be like them. I must talk to the heat and the cold secure not the lost sheep on the mounting bringin one of ours back to the fold. But some day I should take my vacation to the city John told us about with its foundations

wall and all the pressures from the gladness of hot I should of show oh no sights ever witnessed by Martin can compare with the growers up there. I shall spend my vacation was Jesus in a place he went up to prepare. And they had a weather will always be perfect. Not a cloud to sweep over the sky and noise quakes no sock clown can threaten in the land of the Sweet By and by. Soon there is gone to be an excursion. I am booked for a ride in the sky. You are invited to share my vacation. And a feast with a bridegroom to share. There will be no space given to smokers. No part is there. All the backbiting and gossip. Could not have

such a wonderful crowd but the whole gospel train will be ringing. With the shouts of the glorified throng who are on their vacation was Jesus. You are invited to go wrong. Now when most people take their vacations they return to their homes by and by. But when I take my heavenly vacation in my mention of gold in the Scott I will be with my savior for ever. With him said only his holy or throne or no sights ever witnessed but Martin. Can compare with the gloated up there. I shall spin my vacation with Jesus in a place he went up to prepare but the old Gosper train will be ringing with the shouts of the glorified throng who are on their vacation with Jesus. You are invited to go along. Why not take my vacation I don't have on what I want to

be hearing the crunch of the heavenly course and the face of my Savior sitting down on the banks of the river of the evergreen tree. I hear take my users want your spring your vacation with me. Thank you Dr. King's dream a reality or an illusion. Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream that was not just words to look at nor sounds only to be heard. It was his life while he lived. Dr. King was aware of the death confronted him as he marched toward his goal of racial equality. Rev. King could have stopped but he chose to continue his fight and struggle for his people. For all people this was believed to be the true way. Reverend King was not forcing people to do His will. He wanted them to do God's will. All men are created in God's image and each his brother's keeper was God's will his livelihood. Yes.

And that livelihood was his death. It is true. A fellow man thought it fitting to in Dr. King's life. That's bringing in untimely death at the peak of his calling. The question is then raised Dr. King's dream a reality or an illusion. And Dr. King's short life he accomplished much and certainly would have accomplished more but his life ended. April 4th 1968 in Memphis Tennessee. Before his death he brought to the attention of the world his dream and he explained how he hopes someday it would become a reality. The question again arises. Have any of Martin Luther King's dream come true. In order to answer that question let's examine some basic parts of his dream. He stated in part that one day he hoped not to see children being judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Well

has that day come when children are being judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. That question can be partially answered by looking at the Boston busing and rioting scenes. Black students were not permitted to ride on bus buses with white students. Black students were not permitted to enter. Previously all white schools. Only after much bloodshed and concentrated police action could the Boston schools be reopened. This is racial prejudice. This is segregation. I ask you Do you feel that Dr. Martin Luther King's dream is being fulfilled. Let's look into a second part of his dream about freedom. He said in essence that when we let freedom ring from every mountain we would be able to speed up that day when all of God's children meaning all humans regardless of color or so-called race would be able to stand together in seeing in the words of the old Negro spiritual Free at

last has that day come when all mankind can stand up for freedom together is freedom ring in for every mountain for every man woman and child regardless of their color. Yes that day is slowly dying. Black men and women are now taking part in political and social leadership. The U.S. now has many black mayors Congressmen and other high ranking political and social leaders stronger desegregation laws are being passed but they're in force and it is still met by strong opposition and social pressures. Furthermore many have failed to heed Dr. King's words. He left behind the willpower to want to stand up for freedom. It seems that when the man died the willpower and struggle for freedom also died. I ask you Do you feel that we can live together work together pray together lay down our lives for our fellow man.

I think not. There still remains so much to do. How many more lives have to be lost. Death is one certain equalizer and a black man's blood is just as red as a white man's. Search your minds your hearts your innermost beings can you truly say we have made an effort to make Dr. King's dream come true. Let us you and me continue to strive for racial equality. Together you and I can make Dr. King's dream come true. For where two are gathered in His name there God should be. And together you in our control strength from our Creator. Thank you Martin Luther King Jr.. A man so highly regarded a man whose accomplishments are so greatly appreciated.

A man remembered to those who saw him as a figure of hope. Civil rights Birmingham nonviolence segregation Montgomery. I have a dream in the anti-war just a few words and phrases that bring back a flood of thoughts ideas and memories words that characterize a man invincible even to the biggest conspiracies. My Grammy Alabama 1954 the year and place in which Dr. King began his great career he learned of a city transit boycott and he immediately became involved and he termed himself the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association whose policy was nonviolence and enunciate aided principle from which Dr. King never wavered. It was soon after this that blacks and whites rode the buses together. Dr. King was at mass on the platform speaking when he noticed a great deal of commotion in the back of the room.

Another great leader Dr. Ralph Abernathy informed Dr. King that his home had been bombed and that no one knew if his wife Coretta and their children were injured. December 1st 1955 Mrs. Rosa Parks was on her way home. She had done some shopping after work and she was tired. She was seated in the Negro section behind the white section. It was a busy day and more whites than usual boarded the bus. The bus driver said as usual stand up and move to the back. Immediately three niggers stood up and moved back. Mrs. Parks just sat there quietly again louder the bus driver told her to move back. She just sat as if she hadn't heard. OK the bus driver said off fix you. Get off the bus to call the police. A few minutes later a policeman boarded the bus followed by the driver again. The bus driver asked Mrs. Parks to move

back. She again sat as if she hadn't heard without another word. The policeman simply said You're under arrest. In Montgomery white some blacks rode the bus together for the first time. No one was injured in the bombing of Martin Luther King's home and Rosa Parks started a legacy that changed many things for the blacks. All those a minister's son he had a much more pleasant life than most Negroes in the south. Martin Luther King learned early what segregation meant and he made up his mind to do something about it. He believed that what had to be done to the Negroes out of poverty and misery must be accomplished without violence. He helped to organize sit ins protest marches midnight means and demonstration. He worked to get last passed that would give negroes rights equal to those enjoyed by whites the right to vote to decent jobs with equal pay to a good

education and to the use of public facilities such as libraries theaters buses restrooms and elevators. He accomplished much he would have accomplished much more. But he was assassinated while talking to some friends on April 4th 1968 by a white man in Memphis Tennessee and scribe woman's tombstone are the words that remain a symbol of his dream. Free at last free at last thank God Almighty we are free at last. I'd like to close with this quote taken from Dr. King's freedom and dignity speech. I've come back to tell you tonight that you are all God's children made in His image. I've come back to say to you tonight that every man from a base black to a troubled White is significant on God's keyboard easy locks and black complection cannot forfeit nature's claim. Skin may differ but affection swells and white and black the same

five score years ago. A great American who symbolic shadows we stare saing the mental patient proclamation in this momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of negro slaves who have been seers in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous DAYBREAK thing in the low night of captivity but 100 years later we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not for 100 years later the land for the Negro has been sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of

discrimination. One hundred years later the Negro lives on my lonely island no problem. In the midst of a vast social material prosperity one hundred years later the negroes languished in the qualities of American society and finds himself an exile in his own name. So we have come to dramatize a shameful condition you know since we have come to this nation's capital to care should share it. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent years of the Constitution on the and the Declaration of Independence they were signing a promise or you know to which all American was the fall. This no was the Granted Nello Balrog of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When it is obvious today that America has

the fraud upon this promissory note in so for so citizens of color are concerned. And instead of honoring this sacred obligation America has given the Negro people bad chair a check which is came back marked insufficient but we still believe that the bank of justices bankroll. We refute the bill. The burial sufficient for wands in the great valse of opportunity of this nation. So we have called the cast this chariot a check that would give us a call on the mares the riches the freed only and the security of justice. We have also come to this hollow spot to remind America of the flu and I see of now this is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling law

nor to take the tranquil lives in general of graduation. Now's the time to make grilled the promises of democracy. Now is it time to look dark and desolate valleys of segregation to the sunlit pair for radical justice. Now's the time to open up. Oh I love the opportunity to oh all of God's children. Yeah it would be fatal for the nation to overlook the emergency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro in this walk three summers of the negro's legitimate discontinued one not Paris until there is a name Vogue already not film of freedom many quality 1963 is not an E but a beginning. There are those who hope that the Negro needed to blow all steam

and one now will be contingent. Well have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will neither be rest nor tranquility in America until the negro was granted his citizenship. The world winds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of this nation until the bright day of justice. But there is something I must say to you. Who stands on the warm through all souls which leads into the palace of justice in the process of gaining a rifle play. We must love big wrongful D. Let us not seek to satisfy our foes for freedom by drinking from the cup so bitterness and hatred. We must conduct our struggle on the high play games of dignity and discipline. We

must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence again and again we will also rise from the lead just because a meeting physical force was soulful. The marvelous new militancy Woods's Ingall the Negro community must now lead us to a distrust of all white people. For many of our white brothers as they have a dim bar their presence here today have come. As the third destiny is tied up with thought and their freedom is back now to our freedom. We cannot walk and as we wall we must make the place that we should help them watch your head. We cannot turn back. There are those who actually devote teas of civil rights. When will you be satisfied.

We can never be satisfied as long as the negro was the victim of unspeakable horrors. Oh police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long. As our bodies heavy with the power to go travel cannot get our Jeanne in the low tells of the Howe way and the whole tales of the city. We can never be satisfied as long. As the grows basic mobility is from small or get tall so large you won't. We can never be satisfied as long. As the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote in the Negro New York. City believe we have. Nothing for which to vote. No no we are not satisfied. And will not be. Satisfied until justice roll down like wattles and righteousness like a mighty stream. I'll say to you today that in spite of the

difficulties in the flush Trajan's of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nice one live out the true meaning no obvious creed We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. I had a dream that one day on the red heels of Georgia the sons of slaves and the sons of former slave holders will be. Buddhist sit down together at the table brother who. I had a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they one not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I had a dream today. I had a dream that there are now Alabama with this governor having his lips dripping the words of into position and Nala for creation will be transformed in a situation where little black boys and black girls would join hands with little white boys and white girls as brothers and sisters. I had a dream today. I had a dream that every valley should be assaulted every. Mountain shall be male know the rough places will be made a plan and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the law. It should be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our home this is the ferry for which I return to the south. And with this base we will be able to hew up out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this paper will be able to transform the juggling the schools our nation into a beautiful since the knee of brotherhood and with this faith we bear the work together to pray together to struggle together to

go to jail together to stand up for fruit only together knowing that we will be free one day this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning. Mock country tis a very sweet land of liberty of the land where my fathers die. Leno of the pilgrim's pride from. Every mountainside let freedom ring. And if America is to become a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the pulpit to us hilltops in New Hampshire. Their freedom from the mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the high it all again lays a Pennsylvania letter for you don't worry. From the snowcapped Rockies the Colorado their freedom from the curvy slopes of California. And not only if they're left fried O-ring from Snowy Mountain of Georgia let freedom ring from

Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Their freedom from every hill of Mississippi from. Inside let freedom ring. And if we let freedom ring if we let every from every village and every him from every state. Every city then we'll be able to speed up the day when all of God's children will be able to join in in the words of that old Negro spiritual Free at last. Thank God. We're free and that many thanks to the Shan tells gospel choir to William Bradford Beth Rollins Jerome Taylor and Kimberly Rowe who perform the narratives and recitations and to the Springfield human relations department. This program was produced by Willa Seidenberg and Marcy Selman for wy Asso.