"Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually [dying] religion awaiting burial."

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. with his son Martin Luther King III as he greets parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on November 8, 1964.

Photos by Flip Schulke

Today marks 55th year since the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“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.”

🇺🇸Martin Luther King Jr.🇺🇸

References

Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-his-speeches-MLK-carefully-evoked-poetry-langston-hughes-180968655/

Stanford University https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/langston-hughes

The Florida Bookshelf (W. Jason Miller) https://floridapress.blog/2015/01/19/guest-post-how-the-poetry-of-langston-hughes-inspired-martin-luther-kings-first-dream/

Tracing The Path https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly90cmFjaW5ndGhlcGF0aC5wb2RvbWF0aWMuY29tL3JzczIueG1s/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly90cmFjaW5ndGhlcGF0aC5wb2RvbWF0aWMuY29tL2VudHJ5LzIwMjItMDItMjBUMTFfNTdfMzAtMDhfMDA?ep=14

Audio Archives - PoetryAce.com https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9wb2V0cnlhY2UuY29tL3R5cGUvYXVkaW8vZmVlZA/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly9wb2V0cnlhY2UuY29tLz9wPTEzMzQ?ep=14

The Last MLK Day

New Mexico Humanities Council 2022

https://nmhumanities.org/?blogId=1839

No more lies. I'm done. His name was Michael, and now you know why #Progressives have been insisting for years, that King was a Socialist. I believe them, now.

Today In History

Nina Simone, known as the “High Priestess of Soul,” was born in Tryon, NC, on this date February 21, 1933.

Nina Simone studied classical piano at the Juilliard School in New York City. Performing in night clubs, she turned her interest to jazz, blues and folk music and released her first album in 1957, scoring a Top 20 hit with the track “I Loves You Porgy.” In the 1960s.

Simone became known as the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. She wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in response to the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young African American girls. She also penned “Four Women,” chronicling the complex histories of a quartet of African American female figures, and “Young, Gifted and Black,” borrowing the title of a play by Hansberry, which became a popular anthem. After the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Simone’s bassist Greg Taylor penned “Why (The King of Love Is Dead),” which was performed by the singer and her band at the Westbury Music Festival.

“So while you’re imitating Al Capone, I’ll be Nina Simone and defacating on your microphone” - Lauryn Hill

CARTER™️ Magazine

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. studies at his home in Montgomery, Alabama, 1956, photo by Moneta Sleet Jr.

"I imagine you already know I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic…[Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive, but like most human systems, it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So capitalism has out-lived its usefulness."

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

I was the only Negro passenger on the plane, and I followed everybody else going into the Dobbs House to get lunch. When I got there one of the waiters ushered me back and I thought they were giving me a very nice comfortable seat with everybody else and I discovered they were leading me to a compartment in the back. And this compartment was around you, you were completely closed in, cut off from everybody else, so I immediately said that I couldn’t afford to eat there. I went on back and took a seat out in the main dining room with everybody else and I waited there, and nobody served me. I waited a long time, everybody else was being served. So finally I asked for the manager and he came out and started talking, and I told him the situation and he talked in very sympathetic terms. And I never will forget what he said to me.

He said, “Now Reverend, this is the law; this is the state law and the city ordinance and we have to do it. We can’t serve you out here but now everything is the same. Everything is equal back there; you will get the same food; you will be served out of the same dishes and everything else; you will get the same service as everybody out here.”

And I looked at him and started wondering if he really believed that. And I started talking with him. I said, “I don’t see how I can get the same service. Number one, I confront aesthetic inequality. I can’t see all these beautiful pictures that you have around the walls here. We don’t have them back there. But not only that, I just don’t like sitting back there and it does something to me. It makes me almost angry. I know that I shouldn’t get angry. I know that I shouldn’t become bitter, but when you put me back there something happens to my soul, so that I confront inequality in the sense that I have a greater potential for the accumulation of bitterness because you put me back there. And then not only that, I met a young man from Mobile who was my seat mate, a white fellow from Mobile, Alabama, and we were discussing some very interesting things. And when we got in the dining room, if we followed what you’re saying, we would have to be separated. And this means that I can’t communicate with this young man. I am completely cut off from communication. So I confront inequality on three levels: I confront aesthetic inequality; I confront inequality in the sense of a greater potential for the accumulation of bitterness; and I confront inequality in the sense that I can’t communicate with the person who was my seat mate.”

And I came to see what the Supreme Court meant when they came out saying that separate facilities are inherently unequal. There is no such thing as separate but equal.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.

#OnThisDay in 1968: Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed while standing on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

The night prior, Rev. Dr. King delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in support of the sanitation workers on strike at Mason Temple in Memphis. During his final speech, he said, “I’ve seen the promised land. 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.”

On this somber anniversary, we hold deep gratitude for Rev. Dr. King's lifelong work to create a more free and equal country for us all.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., wife Coretta Scott King and their daughter Yolanda, Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Alabama, April 1956. Dan Weiner. Gelatin silver print.

Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols has passed away on July 31, 2022 at age 89 due to natural causes.

She’s best known for her role as Nyota Uhura, which Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. called the character "the first non-stereotypical role portrayed by a Black woman in television history," in Star Trek: The Original Series and its film sequels. She shared one of the first interracial kiss on American television with white leading man William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk in the November 22, 1968, Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren".

She also helped NASA to recruit diverse astronauts, including women and ethnic minorities. Among those who were recruited as a result of the program was Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut.