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If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

Disclaimer.

INJUSTICE!

When services that we pay to protect us,
COMPLETELY FAIL!

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Late Great, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Was born Michael King, Jr. on the 15th of January, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia.
He later changed his first name to Martin.
King was from a middle-class family his father and grandfather were Baptist preachers.
Both parents were college-educated, and his father became pastor of the prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

The family lived on Auburn Avenue, which was also known as "Sweet Auburn".
His secure upbringing, did not shield him from the experience of prejudice, which was very common in the South.
When he was about six years old, his best friend told him that his parents would not allow them to play together anymore.
This was because his friend was now attending a segregated school.

At 12 years old King learnt of his grandmothers death, whilst he was attending a parade without his parents permission.
This had upset him so badly, because he loved his grandmother so much, he then attempted suicide by jumping from a second story window.
Martin pictured with his friend below.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Editors Note:
Martin Luther Kings father was a preacher, and unfortunately a strict disciplinarian.
He had even told a member of his own congregation that he would break a chair over his head, unless he calmed down.
Martin had suffered constant beatings from his father on a regular basis.

His father had once been heard stating that he would make something of Martin, or kill him in trying.
Martin endured his thrashing like a true man, but it clearly took affect upon him.
His teacher had commented that Martin was a strange lad, and somewhat moody.
This is entirely understandable, considering his poor treatment.

When you analyse Martins life, it was full of violence acted upon him, and even in his later life, he was beaten by the police.
He was thrashed as a child, hospitalised as a man, locked up, and treated with utter contempt by police.
Which to my mind makes him one of the most bravest, and honourable men this world has ever known.
A hero of his people, a man that never gave up and kept on fighting to the bitter end.

He finally achieved the freedom of his people, or should we now say our people?
Racism is purely a sign of bad education, and careless upbringing, and even now, much more needs to be done..!

EDUCATION!

1944:

In 1944 at the age of 15 he entered Morehouse College in Atlanta
which gives us an insight to how educationally gifted King really was.
Shortly before he had entered college, King had spent a summer on a tobacco farm in Connecticut which is in the North.
What he realised at that time was just how relaxed the coexistence of the races were in the North, because there was no segregation.

King had remarked that it seemed strange that he could eat anywhere, and white people didn't blink an eyelid.
This experience angered King, as he realised just how pointless and wrong segregation really was in the South.
King graduated from Morehouse in 1948, and had been deeply influenced by his mentor college president, Benjamin Mays, who was a social gospel activist.
Benjamin Mays had accused the African American community of complacency in the face of oppression.

These words were never lost on King, and he also later became acquainted with Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence.
Many people know him as Mahatma Gandhi, his full name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
King went on to earn a bachelor of divinity degree in 1951, and was elected president of Crozer’s student body.
The student body was almost exclusively made up of white students.

King went on to study man's relationship to God which earned him a doctorate in 1955, for his dissertation entitled...
A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Montgomery:
When King was in Boston he had met Coretta Scott, and they married in 1953, going on to have 4 children.
He later became the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Montgomery bus boycott:
In 1955 an incident occurred when Rosa Parks, an African American woman refused to give up her bus seat to a white person.
Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the city’s segregation law.
Activists decided to form the Montgomery Improvement Association, in order to boycott the transit system and they chose King as their leader.

In his first ever speech to the group as president, King announced, 'We have no alternative but to protest'.
Kings home was later dynamited, but it didn't stop him leading the boycott, and one year later the city's buses were finally desegregated.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

UNDAUNTING SPIRIT!

First Arrest: On the success of the Montgomery action, King organised the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
After a visit to India, and inspiration from Africa, King set about his fight for his people.
in 1960 he became co-pastor with his father of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, devoting most of his time to the SCLC, and the civil rights movement.

He took part in a sit in demonstration undertaken by local Black college students.
However, in late October he was arrested with 33 young people for protesting against segregation at a lunch counter in an Atlanta department store.
The charges were dropped, but King was sentenced to Reidsville State Prison Farm on the pretext that he'd violated the probation on a minor traffic offence.
King was released upon the intercession of the Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

Sadly there were some notable failures, when in Albany, Georgia (1961–62), King and his colleagues failed to achieve desegregation for public parks and other facilities.
But that wasn't anywhere near enough to daunt Kings spirit.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

JOHN F KENNEDY!

Birmingham, Alabama, 1963: Theophilus Eugene 'Bull' Connor (July 11, 1897 – March 10, 1973) was an American politician and white supremacist.
He served as Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, for more than two decades.
He strongly opposed the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Under the city commission government.

King led a march into Birmingham Alabama to end the segregation. Amongst the marchers were women and many children.
This was to be one of the most vicious responses by any state, when they unleashed dogs and powerful water canons on all the marchers.
Children were beaten with batons, the water canons were powerful enough to remove cement from brick walls.
King was jailed along with large numbers of his supporters, including the hundreds of schoolchildren.

From the Birmingham jail, King wrote a letter of great eloquence in which he spelt out his philosophy of nonviolence.
In this letter King had invited white people to put themselves in a black person's shoes...

It read: "When you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will,
or when your first name becomes 'N-Word,' (He uses the full word), and your middle name becomes 'boy'.
Then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait".

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The President: John F Kennedy also used the place-trading speech.
He stated that, 'If a Negro can't enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the colour of his skin changed and stand in his place'?

John F Kennedy I believe was one of the greatest presidents of America, in the stand that he took to support King.
Bull Connor was later ousted from power ... A decision that was upheld by the state’s Supreme Court in 1964.

Note:
One of the greatest pieces of advice is to put yourself in someone else's shoes and imagine how you would feel if a situation was reversed.
If you fail to realise the consequences of hatred, then you have failed as a human being.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

FREE AT LAST!

Alabama USA: Birmingham Alabama was given just 90 days to desegregate,
all its lunch counters, restrooms, drinking fountains, and department store fitting rooms.
They were to also hire African Americans in stores as salesmen and clerks, and to release hundreds of jail protesters on bond.
Sadly the victory was met by violence. On May 11, 1963, a bomb damaged the Gaston Motel where King and SCLC members were staying.

The following day, King's brothers home was hit, and Birmingham resident, Alfred Daniel King, was bombed.
On August 28th 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed marchers during his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
The speech concluded with the immortal words 'Free at last'!
Birmingham was at that time considered one of the most successful campaigns of the civil rights era.

However, on September the 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members bombed Birmingham's Sixteen Street Baptist Church.
Four precious young African American children, namely Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair were all killed.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the eulogy at their funerals on September 18, 1963.
A moving moment in the history of racism, and how could 'ANYONE' live with what they did that day?

Rose Tribute.

The four girls that were murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, bombing.
Addie Mae Collins (age 14, born April 18, 1949). #SayHerName
Cynthia Dionne Wesley (age 14, born April 30, 1949). #SayHerName
Carol Denise McNair (age 11, born November 17, 1951). #SayHerName
Carole Rosanond Robertson (age 14, born April 24, 1949). #SayHerName

Martin Luther King, Jr.

RIP.

PETTUS BRIDGE!

American Race Crisis:
On February 6, 1964, King delivered the inaugural speech of a lecture series.
These were initiated at the New School called 'The American Race Crisis'.
In March 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with Robert Hayling's then controversial movement in St.Augustine, Florida.
In December 1964, King and the SCLC joined forces with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Selma, Alabama.

The first signs of opposition to King's tactics from within the civil rights movement, surfaced during the March 1965 demonstrations in Selma, Alabama.
On the 7th of March 1965 John Lewis and other activists made history in Selma, Alabama by crossing its Edmund Pettus Bridge.
This was to become known as 'Bloody Sunday'.
Due to the fact that when they got to the other side, they were met by state troopers on horseback, with billy clubs, (Batons).

The marchers were badly injured, and beaten back.
But followed later when King led 1500 Black and white marchers to the foot of the bridge, but stopped short, and simply knelt and prayed.
That decision cost King the support of many young radicals of whom faulted him for being over cautious.
However, the country was nevertheless aroused, resulting in the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The video below is unpleasant to watch, but vitally important to remember, and never be allowed to repeat...
Pettus Bridge video.
Note: I still find it strange that the bridge is still named after a white supremacist?

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Riots: From this point an impatience with the lack of greater substantive progress encouraged the growth of the Black militancy.
The rioting in the Watts district of Los Angeles in August 1965 demonstrated the depth of unrest amongst urban African Americans.
Throughout the nation, especially in the slums of the larger Northern cities, King’s religious philosophy of nonviolence was increasingly questioned.

King was now being challenged, and even publicly derided by young Black-power enthusiasts.
What was clear back then was the fact that African Americans were increasingly targeted and murdered, by being hung in backwoods.
In the face of mounting criticism, King broadened his approach to include concerns other than racism.
On April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City and again on the 15th at a mammoth peace rally in that city,

King committed himself irrevocably to opposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He later had to relent due to pressure.
The toll of all the pressure had forced King to state that he was tired of marching, and tired of going to jail, living every day under the threat of death.
He felt wholly discouraged, and even thought that his life's work was all in vain. But then he stated that the Holy Spirit had revived his soul again.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some pictures I have of these atrocities are horrific, and could not be displayed.
This is one such image, and that smile on the toothless morons face, makes me feel sick..!

ASSASINATION!

April the 3rd: This was the night before Martin Luthor King, Jr, died..!
He had told a crowd at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis I've seen the promised land.
He said, I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.
The very next day, whilst standing on the second story balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where he and his associates were staying, King was shot and killed by a sniper’s bullet.

RIP.

The killing sparked riots and disturbances in over 100 cities across the country. On March 10, 1969.
The accused assassin, was a white male, named James Earl Ray, he had pleaded guilty to the murder, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

James Earl Ray:
Ray had later recanted his confession,
He claimed that lawyers had coerced him into confessing to the murder.
And he also had stated that he was the victim of a conspiracy.
In a surprising turn of events, members of the King family eventually came to Ray’s defence.

King’s son Dexter had met with the reputed assassin in March 1997 and then publicly joined Ray’s plea for a reopening of his case.
When Ray died on April the 23rd, 1998, Coretta Scott King declared...
America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray’s trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination.
As well as establishing the facts concerning Mr. Ray’s innocence.

Although the U.S. government conducted several investigations into the murder of King and each time concluded that Ray was the sole assassin.
The killing remains a matter of controversy.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

RIP.

The colours of sound.

Judge not a man by roots, or race.
Nor judge a man by style, or grace.
The man you see, has voice, can speak.
To judge by sight, just makes you weak!
The strength of man comes from within.
And not the colour of his skin.
When judging man by his complexion.
Gives understanding, no direction.
The man you see, is just as hallow
To judge by colour, makes you shallow.