News reporter (CEN News ) | Posted on
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is most famously known as the champion of civil rights who took America by a wave of multi-dimensional equality in the times when it was crippled by and struggling against the inequality.
(Courtesy: smartsheet.com)
America in the eighteenth and nineteenth century was known as the epitome of democratic rights, the country which inspired the French Revolution and following that, anti-colonial movements in many different countries. America was the first country to adopt a constitution of its own and ensure the “emancipation” of all its citizens.
It was this America, of which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talks of in his oft-quoted “I have a dream” speech, saying that this America still has a long way to go on the grounds of civil rights and equality.
The 1960s were the years when the whole nation (especially the Black Americans and the poor) were fighting for equal political, social, and economic rights. Those were the times when Apartheid in America was still legal.
(Courtesy: Time Magazine)Those were the times when Martin Luther King came to make all the Americans realize the importance and the need for equality.
Listen to his “I have a dream speech” here:
Luther King is known for his non-violence, Gandhian ideology, through which he wanted to act upon the Marxist ideas of an empowered and emancipated working class. He taught the Americans why the whites and the blacks need to sit together and eat together to take the nation ahead.
Above all, he wanted the struggles of all the underprivileged groups in America to come to an end so that finally the nation could be what it claimed to be –a democratic republic in the true sense.
Apart from the equality, Dr. King believed in the power of service and love. He believed that brotherhood and love can take us together to the “promised land”. This Promised Land is the one where everyone is equal and doesn’t need to be extraordinary to make a difference.
He said:
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘what are you doing for others?’”
Taking the inspiration from here, America celebrates the third Monday of every January as a National Holiday in the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This day is meant not for an off, but for the service of others.
(Courtesy: Forbes)The ideas of Dr. King led to the popularization of the ideas of a “beloved nation”, that’s the legacy which not only America but the whole world should celebrate.
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