In Black America; Tribute to MLK 2017

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America. Then I got into Memphis and some began to say the threats. I talk about the threats that were out or what would happen to me from some of our sick white brother. Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the mountain top. I don't know. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life, longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now.

I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know the night that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not feeling any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 92 this year had he lived out of the dream for racial equality in his country. He was a man walking among the oppressed and poor, a man who questioned unfair laws and wants to jail rather than submit to them. King was a passionate fighter for civil rights. And although he died by violence, his life and teachings were dedicated to a deep respect for violence and his consequences.

He won a Nobel Prize for Peace. His lectures and dialogues served the conscience of a nation. In November 1983, legislation was signed creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Make it in only the third national holiday born in the 20th century. In fall 1991, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assassinated, was dedicated to his remembrance. On October 16, 2011, the MLK Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, a tribute to the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Black America. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is considered by many as the father of the civil rights movement.

Born on Tuesday, January 15, 1929, at the family home in Atlanta, Georgia. He was Chris at Michael Luther King, but in 1934, Daddy King changed his name after young Martin experienced racial prejudice. In 1944, at the age of 15, he graduated high school and entered Morehouse College in Atlanta with intention on becoming a medical doctor, but changed his mind into the junior year. In April 1948, King received this bachelor's degree in sociology and intercroject theological seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. In May 1951, he graduated with a bachelor's of divinity degree and his valedictorian and student body president.

In 1955, he earned his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University. In spring 1963, King non-violent taxes were put to their most severe tests in Birmingham, Alabama during a mass protest for fair hiring practices and the desegregation of department stores. Police brutality used against the march of dramatized supply of African Americans to the nation at large with enormous impact. Established in 1968 by Mr. Carrera Scott King, the Martin Luther King Junior Center for non-violent social change has been a global destination resource center and community institution for over a quarter century. Nearly a million people each year make their way to the national historic site to learn, be inspired, and pay their respect to Dr. King's legacy. On January 20, 1986, the night before the first national celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior holiday, Miss King spoke about her husband and the King Center. The dreams on which the center is based are bigger than any one of us, yet an integral part of all of us, and so like all meaningful dreams, the center will endure.

The center will always respond to realities, basing its programs on the needs, aspirations, and the aspirations of humankind. It will always stand ready in the spirit of Martin Luther King Junior to work through programs that in a clear, comprehensive, and challenging way used principles of non-violence in changing lives and social, economic, and political systems. The center is dynamic and in motion, and like this year's theme is actively helping those who wish to live the dream and saying to all of us that we must not just talk about the dream, we must every day engage ourselves in living the dream. And I say to you tonight that we are challenged at the center to dream like Martin Luther King Junior, impossible dreams, and like Martin Luther King Junior, work untiringly for the fulfillment of those dreams.

I can tell you the story of the center has been an impossible dream, and I'm sure Mrs. Ferris can attest to that fact, and as someone said today in our board meeting, and believe it was our chairman, he said, somehow we don't know how, but somehow, maybe it was Lloyd Davis, so Executive Director of the Holiday Commission and Mr. Hill, but there's been something very special about this holiday experience. And there've been so many things that have come together, despite the fact that we've not had the funds, the resources to mobilize the nation as large and as diverse as our nation is. But somehow people got the message, and they went on and organized themselves, it was a great example, Mayor Young of grassroots organizing. I think I'm qualified to know because I have experienced it during the 30 years of involvement in the civil rights movement, and I can believe, and I hope you share this feeling with me that it's not going to stop now. Bulletin Memphis could not stop Martin Luther King spirit, because what he stood for was based on love and enduring force and truth that will always prevail in the long course of history.

And I want to say to you tonight, let us continue to walk together, to struggle together, to pray together, to keep on living the dream together. Yes, we can achieve the beloved community of which Martin dreamed, and which was the essence of that vision he shared with this nation. The dream is in our hands. What will we do with it? Here in the King's Center, we will keep on living it. We will keep on working. We will keep on and keep on and keeping on until America. Our nation, the great nation that we love, will be transformed truly into that. Oases of justice and freedom and equality for all of God's children. Thank you, God bless. In 1957 in New Orleans, seeking to build upon the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, and with the hope of upgrading the status of Southern Blacks and America's poor,

King summoned together a number of Black leaders to lay the foundation for the organization now known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC. King was elected as first president, and he soon began helping other communities organize their own protests against discrimination. The Anvil Andrew Young, former Mayor of Atlanta and U.S. Ambassador was one of King's most trusted advisors. Looking back on it, we think of those as the best days of our lives. Actually, at the time, it was, I mean, we really didn't know what we were doing, we knew things were wrong, and that somebody had to do something about it, and we just stumbled along from one thing to the other, too. We found a way to make it work. And fortunately, most of us had read a lot about India, and we understood some of the nonviolent methods of Gandhi, and we just experimented until we found out how to organize people. Nobody was trained as an organizer. We knew the Black community, we knew the cities that we were working in fairly well, and we learned gradually over a period of time how to get things done.

What type of impact did the late Dr. Martin of the King have on you at that time? Well, Martin was an amazing young man. He had been sort of thrust in the leadership. He never really wanted it, and yet he couldn't get away from it. And he was essentially trying to do something for other people. That kind of dedication, and the sort of things that he said matter of factly. If a person hadn't found something that they were willing to die for, they probably would not fit to live anyway. Somebody dropped that on you in a joking kind of friendly conversation. It makes you think, what is it that I'm willing to die for? And you begin to think about your life, and think about other people in a new way. I mean, he was amazing that all of the things that he did, and he never lived to be 40 years old. And yet in the midst of it all, he was still privately a very easygoing, friendly, joking, clowning, you know, lovable guy.

In 1953, King completed his doctrine and was granted the degree two years later upon completion of his dissertation. Married at the time, he returned to the South, become pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. There, he made his first mark on the civil rights movement. King plighted for justice and equal rights began on December 5, 1955. Five days after the late Rosa Park refused to have made the city rules mandating segregation on buses. In 1956, that the boycott continued. King gained national prominence at the result of his exceptional speaking skills and personal courage. Although increasingly betrayed as a preeminent black spokesperson, King did not mobilize mass protest activities during the first five years after the Montgomery bus boycott had ended. On August 28, 1963, King led a massive march on Washington DC and delivered one of his most passionate dresses of his career.

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. 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 that character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racist with its governor having his lips tripping with the words of interposition and nullification. One day right that 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. 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 in all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the south with. With this faith, we will be able to hue out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. This faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day. This will be the day with all of God's children. We will be able to sing with new meaning, my country tears of thee. Sweet land of liberty of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride. From every mountain side, let freedom ring in the Americas to be a great nation. This must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltups of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening alligators of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow cappurakis of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the crevice of slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from stone mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from look out mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and mold hill of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from every hill and mold hill of Mississippi. From every mountain side. Let freedom ring and when this happens. When we allow freedom ring. When we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city.

We're able to speed up that day when all the thoughts children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual. Free at last. Free at last. Thank God, almighty. We are free at last. In 1963, Ty and magazine named him. It's perched of the year. A few months later in December 1964, here through Scipian of the Nobel Prize for Peace. After his return from Norway, King took on new challenges. In Selma, Alabama, he led a voter registration campaign that ended in the summer to Montgomery, Freedom Arch. King brought his crusades to Chicago where he started programs to rehabilitate the slums and provide housing. In April 1968, King lent his support to the Memphis sanitation workers. He wanted to discourage violence and wanted to focus national attention on the play of the poor and unorganized workers of the city. The men were bargaining for basic union representation and long overdue raises.

The strike became the new testing ground for the new direction of the poor people's campaign was taking, which merged civil rights issues with economic concerns. On the eve of his assassination, this was King and SCLC's second attempt at a non-violent protest march. I just want to do God's will and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know the night that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not feeling in a man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in the head and is now in critical condition in a Memphis Tennessee hospital. The latest reports from Memphis say Dr. King was hit by gunfire while standing on the balcony of his hotel room just before seven o'clock eastern standard time.

The bill had exploded in his face. He was standing at an acute angle and the bullet knocked him up off of his feet in that direction against that ledger over there. You couldn't tell it was a shot until it hit his face. It sounded like a stick of dynamite on large firecracker. Police say a man wearing a dark suit dropped the weapon about a block from the shooting scene and jumped into a late model white car. Ladies and gentlemen may I have your attention please. At 710 this evening Martin Luther King was shot in Tennessee. Martin Luther King 20 minutes ago died. For those of you who are black and are tempted to feel with be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white people I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed but he was killed by a white man.

He is too small for his spirit but we commit his body to the ground. The grave is too narrow for his soul but we commit his body to the ground. No coffin no crypt nor bulk no stone can hold his greatness but we commit his body to the ground. Sunday October 16, 2011 some 10,000 spectators and dignitaries gathered on the National Mall for the dedication of the Memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Among the speakers were a who's who of civil rights leaders, King's children as well as President Obama. President Obama urged the nation that day to celebrate the dedication of the Memorial by continuing to press for the goals and hopes of the black preacher with no official rank or title who somehow gave voice to our deepest dreams and helped make the nation more perfect. An earthquake and a hurricane may have delayed this day but this is a day that would not be denied. For this day we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s return to the National Mall. His life, his story tells us that change can come if you don't give up. He would not give up no matter how long it took because in the smallest hamlets and the darkest slums he had witnessed the highest reaches of the human spirit because in those moments when the struggle seemed most hopeless he had seen men and women and children conquer their fear because he had seen hills and mountains made low and rough places made plain and the crooked places made straight and God make a way out of no way. That is why we honor this man because he had faith in us and that is why he belongs on this mall because he saw what we might become. That is why Dr. King was so quintessentially American because for all the hardships we've endured, for all our sometimes tragic history, ours is a story of optimism and achievement and constant striving that is unique upon this earth and that is why the rest of the world still looks to us to lead.

This is a country where ordinary people find in their hearts the courage to do extraordinary things. The courage to stand up in the face of the fiercest resistance and to spare and say this is wrong and this is right, we will not settle for what the cynics tell us we have to accept and we will reach again and again no matter the odds for what we know is possible. That is the conviction we must carry now in our hearts as tough as times may be. I know we will overcome. I know there are better days ahead. I know this because of the man towering over us. I know this because all he and his generation endured. We are here today in a country that dedicated a monument to that legacy and so with our eyes on the horizon and our faith squarely placed in one another.

Let us keep striving. Let us keep struggling. Let us keep climbing toward that promised land of a nation in the world that is more fair and more just and more equal for every single child of God. Thank you God bless you and God bless the United States of America. In September 1991 the National Civil Rights Museum at Lorraine Motel was dedicated. The museum traces the history of the civil rights movement from its beginning to the present. The museum has been built around the hotel with King State while in Memphis. His room and that of his age had been kept as it was that faithful evening in April 1968. Dr. King had been in Memphis prior to the assassination and prior to the coming in March for the March that broke out in violence. He had come here before when he stayed at the Lorraine and this was the room that he'd usually stay in. It's a nice room a nice king size bed even for that time. That would have been nice. So he stayed here and we have kept the original furniture that was in the room at the time and it's been redone to look as it did in 1968.

But this is where he was the night of the assassination. That's room 307. Now of course here is room 306. And this is the room that was been occupied by some of Dr. King's age with the two beds in here. But this is the room that he walked out of just prior to being shot. He had been in here with Reverend Avenue and some others and they were as you can see having some food. There's some catfish on the plate over there and dishes and the glasses and milk and the light. And this room has been recreated to appear as it did in the evening of the assassination. And again the furniture in the room is all the furniture that was here at the time. One other thing that I like about this room is if it stands in here and reflects and reads these display lines you also hear and they light up when it acts up. You also hear Mahaya Jackson soft like singing precious law and that was Dr. King's favorite song. So it's just it brings tears to your eyes when it went all is operating.

I was just so struck by that last little line there I just with them putting the casket on the plane there that just tells it all somebody said it's just some ordinary person I said we really lost somebody didn't we. Let me stand. I am tied. I am we. I am. The star through the light. Give me all through the night.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was 39 at the time of his death he was shot while standing on the back of the rain motel in Memphis Tennessee. This has been a tribute to the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who would have been 92 this week. If you have questions comments or suggestions asked your future in black America programs email us at in black America at kut.org. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Facebook. You can get previous programs online at kut.org. Also you can listen to a special collection of in black America programs at American Archives of Public Broadcasting. That's American Archives.org. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin.

Until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Alvarez. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America CDs kut radio one university station Austin, Texas 78712. That's in black America CDs kut radio one university station Austin, Texas 78712. This has been a production of kut radio.