Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for many things. He was the leader of the American Civil Rights movement, an advocate for nonviolence, an inspirational speaker and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. At home, he was also a husband and father to four children. His dedication to his family was deeply connected to his vision for the United States. In fact, Dr. King’s mission for peace and equality was greatly inspired by his desire to help future generations of children. He consistently used familial metaphors and symbols to illustrate his greater points. Here are the top Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on family.
Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Family
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.” (“I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963)
“Without love, there is no reason to know anyone, for love will, in the end, connect us to our neighbors, our children and our hearts.” (Date unknown)
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” (speech in St. Louis, March 22, 1964)
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands…” (“I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963)
“The group consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational agency of mankind.” (Date unknown)
“I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.” (New York Journal-American, September 10th, 1962)
“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.” (Strength To Love, published 1981).
“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” speech, August 28, 1963)
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on family went hand in hand with his mission for equality. Whether it was America’s children or his own, Dr. King emphasized coexisting and love for one another throughout his famous speeches. He used images of brotherhood and children to exemplify the relationships he believed Americans should have with one another. To Dr. King, family referred to more than blood relatives. It encompassed all people in the United States, regardless of color. Today, his message of prioritizing family is forever ingrained in his legacy, to be studied and appreciated by generations to come.
https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpg00Kim Thelwellhttps://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpgKim Thelwell2019-09-11 07:30:132019-08-30 22:24:27Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes on Family
During the earlier years of U.S. history, slavery and oppression created some of America’s oldest top civil rights leaders. Susan B. Anthony, Chief Joseph, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. are only a few of the many people who fought back in the face of adversity.
Paving the Way
1851: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are two big names in women’s civil rights. Together, they worked toward social and political advances for women. They established the American Equal Rights Association, which aimed to earn women and African American men voting rights. Other accomplishments were forming the Women’s Loyal National League, which gave women a political platform, and writing an amendment that was proposed to the Senate every year for 40 years. These two women are responsible for some of the rights American women have today.
1853: Harriet Tubman is one of the most well known civil rights leaders associated with U.S. slavery. Tubman helped more than 300 slaves reach freedom with the well-known Underground Railroad. Tubman saved her own money, and supporters donated funds to help her continue her mission to free enslaved African Americans. While Tubman is most famous for her work with the Underground Railroad, she also provided invaluable services during the Civil War.
1877: In an effort to avoid the slaughter and oppression of his tribe, Chief Joseph led the Nez Perce people on a 1,400-mile journey from the Wallowa Valley (now Oregon) toward Canada. This four-month long venture was treacherous for the Nez people. Many of the original 700 had lost their lives and the remaining could not continue, which forced Chief Joseph to surrender just 40 miles from the Canadian border. Although he admitted defeat in the end, Chief Joseph is one of the top civil rights leaders because he stood up to fight for what he believed in while facing an oppressive government.
These inspirational people carved the road for the next civil rights leaders to come a century later.
Civil Rights Movement
1955: Rosa Parks faced discrimination on a bus ride, where she was asked to give up her seat to a white man. She refused, which led to her arrest and her rise to civil rights leadership. Her wrongful arrest led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a protest by 17,000 African American citizens. This caused a substantial drop in revenue and a Supreme Court ruling to desegregate the Montgomery buses, because the law was deemed unconstitutional. Parks received severe backlash after the boycott and even lost her job as a tailor, but she still persevered. Parks is one of America’s top civil rights leaders because she continued the fight for African Americans and created change.
1963: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is maybe the most famous champion of human rights. He led peaceful marches and demonstrations protesting the discrimination African Americans faced in the U.S. His movement inspired the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and his words are often the inspiration of equality speeches today. Dr. King was faced with arrest, hate and violence from the people of Birmingham, Alabama. Yet he stood tall in the face of controversy and remained peaceful throughout his civil rights leadership. He preached of a world in which people were no longer divided by race, a message which still resonates with many today.
1965: Malcolm X faced racism all his life and channeled it through anger for a significant portion of his activism. He was known for a radicalized activism during the Civil Rights Movement and was viewed as a black nationalist who had an alternative approach to change. It was widely known that his delivery of the message of change contrasted Dr. King’s peaceful message. However, toward the end of his civil rights leadership, he had an apparent ideological change. Unfortunately, like many other civil rights trailblazers, he was assassinated before he could see a significant change in America.
The Fight Continues
The effortless work of past civil rights leaders has not ended; they merely passed the torch on to activists fighting today. Some of the current top civil rights leaders are:
Tarana Burke: Burke fights for the rights of victims of sexual assault and abuse. She is also the creator of the Me Too movement.
Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi: Creators of the Black Lives Matter group, which protests police brutality and institutional racism.
Chad Griffin: President of Human Rights Campaign, which is one of America’s largest gender and sexual minorities civil rights organization.
Nihad Awad: The leader of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an Islamic advocacy organization that monitors hate crimes, profiling and discrimination against Muslim Americans.
Benjamin Crump: A civil rights attorney who speaks and represents cases for minorities who have experienced police brutality.
Michelle Alexander: Alexander is a civil rights lawyer who works against the systematic racial oppression of the African American men that disproportionately fill the nation’s prisons.
Throughout history, people have fought for their own civil rights around the world. Whether it was Nelson Mandela creating a national strike against the South African government, Malala Yousafzai journaling girl’s right to education, or Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi refusing to get out of his first-class seat on a train—activism is everywhere and has a ripple effect. Through protesting and standing up for their own rights, these former and current activists have made the top civil rights leaders list.
– Courtney Hambrecht
https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpg00Borgen Projecthttps://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpgBorgen Project2018-04-01 01:30:262019-11-17 11:56:52Top Civil Rights Leaders: A Timeline
Martin Luther King Jr. is arguably the most influential black leader in American history. He spearheaded a nationwide effort to end legal segregation while working to enact such laws as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His most famous speech continues to be a staple in American culture. Discussed below are five interesting facts about Martin Luther King Jr.
Top 5 Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.
King’s father was born Michael King, but changed his name in 1931 in reverence to the German theologian Martin Luther.
After 12-year-old Martin learned that his grandmother had died from a heart attack in May 1941, he was so distraught that he jumped from a second story window of their house.
Martin was almost assassinated before many of his famous civil rights accomplishments in the early 1960s. Izola Ware Curry approach Martin at a book signing for “Stride Towards Freedom.” After receiving confirmation that he was indeed Martin Luther King Jr. she exclaimed “I’ve been looking for you for five years” and stabbed Martin in the chest with a letter opener. The blade pressed against his aorta and took several hours of careful surgery to remove.
Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 at the age of 35. This made him the youngest male recipient of the prestigious award. He donated the entire prize of $54,123 (now equivalent to $400,000) to the civil rights movement. Martin won dozens more awards for his work including the Medal of Freedom, Congressional Gold Medal, and a Grammy. The Grammy was for Best Spoken Word Album, awarded in 1971 for King’s “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.”
Martin Luther King Jr. was targeted by the FBI for being “the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.” Records of Martin taken by the FBI are held in the National Achieve but remain sealed from public access until 2027.
These facts about Martin Luther King Jr. provide but a glimpse into the life of a man whose work is still so vital to the progress of U.S. society and democracy.
https://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpg00Borgen Projecthttps://borgenproject.org/wp-content/uploads/logo.jpgBorgen Project2015-07-13 04:00:072020-07-09 23:01:265 Interesting Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.
As an influential leader and a revolutionary of the Civil Rights movement, the various wise words of Martin Luther King Jr. still ring among us today. His actions were an aiding pendulum that help set in motion the equal rights of all races.
50 years following his “I Have a Dream” speech, the words still resonate a powerful meaning amongst society, and the effects of his speech are felt even to this day.
Comprised below is a list of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous quotes:
1. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
2. “Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.”
3. “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
4. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
5. “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
6. “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”
7. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
8. “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
9. “We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely being to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”
10. “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.”
11. “Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”
12. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
13. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
14. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
15. “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”
16. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
17. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
18. “We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.”
19. “The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.”
20. “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for many things. He was the leader of the American Civil Rights movement, an advocate for nonviolence, an inspirational speaker and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. At home, he was also a husband and father to four children. His dedication to his family was deeply connected to his vision for the United States. In fact, Dr. King’s mission for peace and equality was greatly inspired by his desire to help future generations of children. He consistently used familial metaphors and symbols to illustrate his greater points. Here are the top Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on family.
