On Service: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A Pictorial History Of A Great People
1619: Slaves First Arrive In The Colonies
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Frederick Douglas
Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War.
A brilliant speaker, Douglass was asked by the American Anti-Slavery Society to engage in a tour of lectures, and so became recognized as one of America's first great black speakers. He won world fame when his autobiography was publicized in 1845. Two years later he bagan publishing an antislavery paper called the North Star.
Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights and other civil liberties for blacks. Douglass provided a powerful voice for human rights during this period of American history and is still revered today for his contributions against racial injustice.
The Underground Railroad
Quakers were one of many groups who had come to believe that it was wrong to hold people in bondage, whatever their ethnicity. Early concerned Quakers gave eloquent testimony on the anti-slavery issue and were instrumental in action taken by various Yearly Meetings, which urged from 1758 that members free their slaves. In 1776 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting disowned members who persisted in owning slaves. As early as 1786, some Quakers joined the movement to help runaway slaves reach freedom. This was the real beginning of the Underground Railroad, the secret organization that helped escaping slaves before the Civil War. It was a railroad that ran without tracks, cars, or written records. The abolitionists, for the most part anti-slavery Northerners, were aided by some Southerners who were sympathetic to the cause of freedom. These abolitionists were called "conductors." Their homes were the "stations."
In the very first issue of his anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison stated, "I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD." And Garrison was heard. For more than three decades, from the first issue of his weekly paper in 1831, until after the end of the Civil War in 1865 when the last issue was published, Garrison spoke out eloquently and passionately against slavery and for the rights of America's black inhabitants.
Soujourner Truth
Sojourner Truth (c. 1797–November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her best-known speech, which became known as Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
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Booker T. Washington
Born a slave and deprived of any early education, Booker Taliaferro Washington nonetheless became America's foremost black educator of the early 20th century. He was the first teacher and principal of the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, a school for African-Americans where he championed vocational training as a means for black self-reliance. A well-known orator, Washington also wrote a best-selling autobiography (Up From Slavery, 1901) and advised Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft on race relations. His rather flaccid nickname of "The Great Accommodator" provides a clue as to why he was later criticized by W. E. B. Du Bois and the N.A.A.C.P. Washington was principal of Tuskegee Institute from 1881 until his death in 1915; it was originally called the Normal School for Colored Teachers and is now known as Tuskegee University.
W. E. B. Du Bois
Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
Du Bois
Du Bois was born and raised in Massachusetts, and graduated in 1888 from Fisk University, a black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. During the summer, he taught in a rural school and later wrote about his experiences in his book THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK.
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In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in the subject of history from Harvard University. He then studied in Germany but ran out of funds before he could earn a post-doctoral degree. With the publication of THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO: A SOCIAL STUDY in 1899, the first case study of a black community in the United States, as well as papers on black farmers, businessmen, and black life in Southern communities, Du Bois established himself as the first great scholar of black life in America.
 He taught sociology at Atlanta University between 1898 and 1910. Du Bois had hoped that social science could help eliminate segregation, but he eventually came to the conclusion that the only effective strategy against racism was agitation. He challenged the dominant ideology of black accommodation as preached and practiced by Booker T. Washington, then the most influential black man in America. Washington urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and elevate themselves through hard work and economic gain to win the respect of whites.
In 1903, in his famous book THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK, Du Bois charged that Washington's strategy kept the black man down rather than freed him. This attack crystallized the opposition to Booker T. Washington among many black intellectuals, polarizing the leaders of the black community into two wings -- the "conservative" supporters of Washington and his "radical" critics. In 1905, Du Bois took the lead in founding the short-lived Niagara Movement, intended to be an organization advocating civil rights for blacks. Although the Niagara Movement faltered, it was the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was founded in 1909. Du Bois played a prominent role in the organization's creation and became its director of research and the editor of its magazine, THE CRISIS.
For many young African Americans in the period from 1910 through the 1930s, Du Bois was the voice of the black community. He attacked Woodrow Wilson when the president allowed his cabinet members to segregate the federal government. He continued to fight against the demand by many whites that black education be primarily industrial and that black students in the South learn to accept white supremacy. Du Bois emphasized the necessity for higher education in order to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of black Americans, whom he dubbed "The Talented Tenth."
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A. Phillip Randolph
Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a prominent twentieth century African-American civil rights leader and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which was a huge victory for labor and especially for African-American labor organizing.
Randolph had some experience in labor organization, having organized a union of elevator operators in New York City in 1917. In 1925, Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first serious effort to form a labor union for the employees of the Pullman Company, which was a major employer of African-Americans. With amendments to the Railway Labor Act in 1934, porters were granted rights under federal law, and membership in the Brotherhood jumped to more than 7,000. After years of bitter struggle, the Pullman Company finally began to negotiate with the Brotherhood in 1935, and agreed to a contract with them in 1937, winning $2,000,000 in pay increases for employees, a shorter workweek, and overtime pay. [2] The Brotherhood was associated with the American Federation of Labor.
Civil rights leader
Randolph emerged as one of the most visible spokespersons for African-American civil rights. In 1941, he, Bayard Rustin, and A. J. Muste proposed a march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in war industries. The marchwas canceled after President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Fair Employment Act. Some militants felt betrayed by the cancellation because Roosevelt's pronouncement only pertained to defense industries and not the armed forces themselves. In 1947, Randolph formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. President Harry S. Truman abolished racial segregation in the armed forces through Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948.
Randolph was also notable in his support for restrictions on immigration.
In 1950, along with Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, and Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, Randolph founded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). LCCR has since become the nation's premier civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.
Randolph also helped Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr. to organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. As the U.S. civil rights movement gained momentum in the early 1960s and came to the forefront of the nation's consciousness, his rich baritone voice was often heard on television news programs addressing the nation on behalf of African-Americans engaged in the struggle for voting rights and an end to discrimination in public accommodations.
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During World War II, civil rights groups and black professional organizations pressed the government to provide training for black pilots on an equal basis with whites. Their efforts were partially successful. African American fighter pilots were trained as a part of the Army Air Force, but only at a segregated base in Tuskegee, Ala. Hundreds of airmen were trained and many saw action.
In March 1945, Toni Frissell took more than 280 photographs of the "Tuskegee Airmen," the elite, all-African American 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli, Italy. The group was commanded by Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr, who later became the first three-star general in the Air Corps. They earned more than 744 Air Medals and Clusters, more than 100 Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, eight Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Legion of Merit. Frissell was the first professional photographer permitted to capture the Tuskegee Airmen in a combat situation. She traveled to their air base in southern Italy, from where the "Tuskegee Airmen" flew sorties into southern Europe and north Africa.
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Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders of a municipal bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, riding an integrated bus, December 1956.
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The Meaning of the
Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
By Coretta Scott King
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. We commemorate as well the timeless values he taught us through his example -- the values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that so radiantly defined Dr. King’s character and empowered his leadership. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit.
We commemorate Dr. King’s inspiring words, because his voice and his vision filled a great void in our nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that truly lived by its noblest principles. Yet, Dr. King knew that it wasn’t enough just to talk the talk, that he had to walk the walk for his words to be credible. And so we commemorate on this holiday the man of action, who put his life on the line for freedom and justice every day, the man who braved threats and jail and beatings and who ultimately paid the highest price to make democracy a reality for all Americans.
The King Holiday honors the life and contributions of America’s greatest champion of racial justice and equality, the leader who not only dreamed of a color-blind society, but who also lead a movement that achieved historic reforms to help make it a reality.
On this day we commemorate Dr. King’s great dream of a vibrant, multiracial nation united in justice, peace and reconciliation; a nation that has a place at the table for children of every race and room at the inn for every needy child. We are called on this holiday, not merely to honor, but to celebrate the values of equality, tolerance and interracial sister and brotherhood he so compellingly expressed in his great dream for America.
It is a day of interracial and intercultural cooperation and sharing. No other day of the year brings so many peoples from different cultural backgrounds together in such a vibrant spirit of brother and sisterhood. Whether you are African-American, Hispanic or Native American, whether you are Caucasian or Asian-American, you are part of the great dream Martin Luther King, Jr. had for America. This is not a black holiday; it is a peoples' holiday. And it is the young people of all races and religions who hold the keys to the fulfillment of his dream.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is not only for celebration and remembrance, education and tribute, but above all a day of service. All across America on the Holiday, his followers perform service in hospitals and shelters and prisons and wherever people need some help. It is a day of volunteering to feed the hungry, rehabilitate housing, tutoring those who can't read, mentoring at-risk youngsters, consoling the broken-hearted and a thousand other projects for building the beloved community of his dream.
Dr. King once said that we all have to decide whether we "will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. Life's most persistent and nagging question, he said, is `what are you doing for others?'" he would quote Mark 9:35, the scripture in which Jesus of Nazareth tells James and John "...whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant; and whosoever among you will be the first shall be the servant of all." And when Martin talked about the end of his mortal life in one of his last sermons, on February 4, 1968 in the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, even then he lifted up the value of service as the hallmark of a full life. "I'd like somebody to mention on that day Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others," he said. "I want you to say on that day, that I did try in my life...to love and serve humanity.
We call you to commemorate this Holiday by making your personal commitment to serve humanity with the vibrant spirit of unconditional love that was his greatest strength, and which empowered all of the great victories of his leadership. And with our hearts open to this spirit of unconditional love, we can indeed achieve the Beloved Community of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.
May we who follow Martin now pledge to serve humanity, promote his teachings and carry forward his legacy into the 21st Century.
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Rosa Parks
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Seattle Washington
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Thurgood Marshall
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Oklahoma
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Parrish Kelley
August 5, 2004 (Old Main 203)
At the age of 18, Parrish Kelley (center) became a foot-soldier in a pivotal event of the civil rights movement--Freedom Summer of 1964. He will speak about his Quaker forebears, growing up in Buffalo, New York, and Dallas, Texas, and registering African Americans to vote in Ruleville, Mississippi, where he worked with Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the legendary figures of the movement. His recollection will focus on the dangers of fighting segregation on the frontlines, the friendships forged in such trying circumstances, and the stigma of being white as civil rights organizations began ousting nonblacks. His presentation will conclude with remarks on how the movement changed his life and others.
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Morris Dees
Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), cited his grade school teacher’s straightforward interpretation of the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance—one nation, with liberty and justice for all—as the earliest starting point in his battle against hatred, poverty and injustice.
Dees knew all too well that becoming a civil rights lawyer in Montgomery, Alabama wasn’t going to win him any popularity contests. He wrote in his autobiography, A Season for Justice, "All the things in my life that had brought me to this point, all the pulls and tugs of my conscience, found a singular peace. It did not matter what my neighbors would think, or the judges, the bankers, or even my relatives." Dees, the soft-spoken and gentle-natured white farmer’s son from Shorter, Alabama, faced the struggles placed before him, and in doing so demonstrated a resolve that is as tenacious about delivering justice as it is sophisticated and creative in its approach to legal theory.
Burt Neuborne, Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties, introduced Dees when he visited the NYU School of Law on March 7, 2006, to deliver his candid lecture, “With Justice for All,” and to answer law students’ questions about pursuing a profession in civil rights advocacy.
Neuborne began the discussion by asking a question that he as a civil rights activist and former National Legal Director of the ACLU often asks himself: Are we relevant? Judging by Dees’ victories in stripping assets from hate merchants and defending the indigent working population, the answer is a resounding yes. “Morris Dees,” said Neuborne, “is Exhibit One that I put in front of me to keep me going.”
When approaching any case, Dees takes his cue from his personal hero Clarence Darrow who, in Dees’ opinion, was the master of framing legal arguments. Darrow, like Dees, often found himself up against seemingly insurmountable odds in the cases he chose. Dees recounted Darrow’s ostensibly pointless defense of an Appleton, Wisconsin union leader against an airtight felony conspiracy charge. In his closing arguments, Darrow simply and subtly painted a picture of the wealthy local factory owner as an unjust foe out to prevent his very workers from rising above their lower class status. Seeing the obvious need for unions to protect the rights of workers in Wisconsin, the jury acquitted the labor leader.
Some of the cases that Dees and the SPLC have undertaken over the past few months echo the injustices that Darrow confronted during his legal career. Dees and his dedicated staffers in Montgomery (three of whom are Law School students) are currently working to protect the rights of both documented and undocumented laborers. The SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project is currently taking on rights violations in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Migrant workers there claim that they have not been paid for the gruesome jobs they performed (removing debris that had been soaked by standing water and raw sewage) while working for corporations who secured government billion-dollar contracts to clean up and restore the Crescent City.
“The United States would have a hard time existing without these people,” Dees said of laborers who come to the U.S. from such far-off places as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala to find low-wage work planting trees on pine farms and cleaning fowl at poultry plants. These immigrant workers are typically forced to earn far less than the $12-20 per hour that is dictated by federal employment laws, receive no health benefits and are fired if any complaint is lodged against the employer.
Dees concluded his personal journey through four-plus decades of civil rights advocacy with a quotation by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Don’t be satisfied, Dees said, “until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
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Dr. Mae Jemison, dancer and physician, was the first black woman to travel in space, as an astronaut on the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992,
According to Webster's Dictionary, a dream is a "series of thoughts, images or emotions occurring during sleep." Nowadays, when we speak of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of equality, it seems like one of those gauzy images that have little to do with our waking life.
But King's dream wasn't an illusive fantasy to Dr. Mae Jemison. It was a call to action.
"Too often people paint him like Santa -- smiley and inoffensive," said the African-American woman who broke the racial barrier on the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
"But when I think of Martin Luther King, I think of attitude and audacity."
Jemison said King's action on his dream made her life possible.
As a little girl growing up in Chicago, she'd gaze at the stars. "I could see myself in space when others couldn't," she said. "I had to learn not to limit myself because of others' limited imagination."
People were puzzled by her shared interest in the sciences, arts and community service. As a free and equal human being, she felt she shouldn't have to choose between them.
At 16, she entered Stanford and majored in both chemical engineering and African-American studies, all the while cultivating her talents in dance. After earning her medical degree at Cornell University, she became a doctor in Los Angeles, but also spent more than two years as a Peace Corps physician in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
She joined NASA in 1987, and became the first woman of color into space. But she never let that achievement overshadow the other dimensions of her personality. Among the things she carried into space were a poster from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a Bundu statue from Sierra Leone.
"For me, they were symbols of human creativity," the Houston resident said recently during a standing-room only celebration of the slain civil rights leader sponsored by Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis. "The same kind of human creativity that launched the space shuttle."
Since she retired from the space program in 1993, Jemison's career has continued to defy categorization. She runs two medical technology companies dedicated to applying science to improve human life. She tirelessly promotes science literacy for children.
Her autobiography, "Find Where the Wind Goes," is aimed at young adults to inspire them to honor their God-given creativity.
I asked Jemison what she'd say to that little Chicago girl who once imagined herself floating in space. She answered: "I'm still trying to catch up with who she intended me to be."
That's what the civil rights struggle is all about: Breaking down the barriers to human potential. Too often these days, King's vision seems to be stuck in the realm of dreams. How do we make it reality?
Jemison's answer was simple: "The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up."
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Dreams Can Be Powerful Things
