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If you receive more than one initiation, then please remember to take deep breaths in-between
initiations.
I knew he was worried about what was happening but in my young mind I could not understand
the force and importance of the man and the crowds. Up until that day I did not know that
anyone was treated unjustly. I can only imagine how difficult it was for my grandfather trying to
answer my questions on the way back home. I cried for the people I knew that may have had
terrible things happen to them that I would not even know about. I cried because it was “mean
and wrong and not what Jesus taught.” He understood me on a level my grandmother could not
since she was diligently trying to shelter and protect me. The trip to D.C was our secret for
many years. Looking back at that trip with a man who spoke very little to others, I see it as a
turning point and deciding factor in my life.
I believe as Martin Luther King did on the day his home was threatened as he fell to his knees in
prayer, God has a plan for us. Martin wrote that God told him. ”Martin Luther, stand up for
righteousness, stand up for Justice, stand up for the truth. And lo I will be with you, even until
the end of the world.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born to a Baptist
minister and his wife on January 15, 1929. He grew
up in the church and attended public schools. He
received his Bachelors degree in Sociology from
Morehouse College in 1948. Continuing his education
he also received a Bachelors of Divinity from the
Crozen Theological Seminary in Chester, Penn-
sylvania in 1951 and his PhD. in Systematic Theology
from Boston University in 1955. He married Loretta
Scott on June 18th 1953 and they eventually had four
children: two sons and two daughters. In 1955 he
accepted pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church in Montgomery, Alabama. His sermons were
impassioned with his views on the rights of others
and the injustices of the world.
It was a natural progression for him to be a member of the executive committee of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1955, he led his first nonviolent
demonstration. When Mrs. Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to
a white man, Martin, along with two other pastors in the city, decided to protest with a
boycotting of the bus system. The boycott lasted 382 days and led to the desegregation of the
public transit system. December 21, 1956 the Supreme Court declared bus segregation as
unconstitutional. During the long days of the boycott, he and his family’s lives were threatened,
his home was bombed and Martin was arrested.
Dr King and his wife were guests of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in February 1959 in India.
He gladly welcomed the opportunity to study Gandhi’s March techniques of nonviolence as he
had been employing methods from his study of Gandhi in the past.
Violent acts upon Dr King continued as he was stabbed in Harlem, New York and stoned in
Chicago, Illinois. Through all the anger he incited, there was a larger measure of respect. He
received the Nobel peace prize December 10, 1964 at 39 years of age making him the youngest
person to ever receive this honor. He also received the following honors:
One year before his death, he began to speak out against the war in
Viet Nam. In retrospect many people believe these speeches are the
“last stand” that led to his untimely demise.
“King delivered Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. In the
speech he spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, insisting
that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony"
and calling the US government "the greatest purveyor of violence in
the world today." But he also argued that the country needed larger
and broader moral changes:
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring
contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will
look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West
investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out
with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which
produces beggars needs restructuring." From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King
said, the U.S. was "on the wrong side of a world revolution." King questioned "our alliance with
the landed gentry of Latin America," and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions "of the
shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World, instead of supporting them.”
www.wikipedia.com (image courtesy of Rob Surrette - world’s fastest portrait artist)
In April 3, 1968, at Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ, Inc. - World Headquarters) King
prophetically told a euphoric crowd during his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech:
I end with the words of yet another man in honor of this great man. The following words are
from a song by James Taylor:“Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King, and
recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women, living on the earth, Ties of hope
and love, sister and brotherhood, That we are bound together with a desire to see the world
become a place in which our children can grow free and strong.”
Proclaiming a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., President George W. Bush receives a portrait of the civil rights leader
from his wife and children in the East Room Jan. 21, 2002. Photographed from left to right are Coretta Scott King, the President,
Rev. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III. WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY TINA HAGER.