I’m thankful that my country has a day like today to remember one of my greatest spiritual heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr.
While I never was alive to experience any of King’s nonviolence movement, I was able to study his life extensively through minority relations’ liberal arts minor during my college days. Having lived to be just 39 years old when his life was tragically taken, Martin Luther King, Jr. made an incredible impact upon not only our country but also this world with such a short lifespan.
King believed in pacifism, which was no different than the views of many of my other spiritual heroes throughout time who include Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Jesus to name a few. Pacifism is the belief that all disputes should be settled through peaceful means and that violence should never be involved. Hence the reason for the nonviolence protests that Martin Luther King. Jr. led in his adult life to establish equal rights for black men and women in our country.
Probably the most famous of those was the one that first gained him national recognition, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. It started on December 1st, 1965 when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. Because of this incident, King led a full-fledged bus boycott for the next 385 days until the United States District Court ruled in Browder v. Gayle that racial segregation would be illegal on Montgomery public buses. During the days of the protests that led up to the ruling, King’s house was bombed, he was arrested, and publicly humiliated and taunted, but not once did he ever lash out at anyone. Instead, King lived by his faith in God, which helped him to endure peacefully, the entire backlash that constantly came at him and his followers.
I was able to see from an even greater perspective, how great of a spiritual man King was when I watched the entire 14-hour “Eyes On The Prize” documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. During it, I saw real footage of the many sit-ins he led throughout the South at places where segregation still thrived. Some of the images in this documentary haunt me to this day of what so many racist white people did towards King and all his followers. It baffles me to understand how these racist white people justified their beatings of all those innocent black men and women. I was shocked every time I saw the firemen turn their hoses onto those peacefully protesting and knock them to the ground. Truthfully, I was horrified to see all this racist behavior that also included the spitting on, the throwing of objects at, and the other constant public humiliation tactics towards black men and women who were just trying to gain equal rights. But even with the amount of hateful acts King and his followers endured on their quest, they remained nonviolent.
He even successfully organized a peaceful march on Washington D.C. on August 28th, 1963 with somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people. During it, he gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech that was focused on gaining equal jobs and freedom as well as the end to all oppression and segregation for black people.
One of the biggest triumphs that King’s march on Washington and nonviolence movement achieved was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed discrimination in all places of public accommodation, including restaurants and lunch counters, motels and hotels, gas stations, theaters, and sports arenas. It also led to the eventual desegregation in public schools. But sadly, Martin Luther King, Jr. never got to fully see the success of all his nonviolent efforts. At 6:01pm on April 4th, 1968, his life was taken by an assassination, that to this day still has many conspiracy theorists questioning if the true person responsible for his death was ever caught.
All conspiracy theories aside, King’s legacy led many others to pick up where he left off and continue the quest for full equality of black men and women in the United States. Soon after his death, Congress did pass the Civil Rights Act of 1968, commonly known now as the Fair Housing Act. It prohibited discrimination in housing and housing-related transactions on the basis of race, religion, or national origin.
I’m so grateful for what Martin Luther King, Jr. did to achieve equality in this country. On some level, I believe his efforts have even led to the peaceful movements taking place today for equal rights for gay men and women. Unfortunately, I have had to endure my own experiences of being on the receiving end of hate by those who don’t approve of homosexuality and same-sex relationships. Through it all though, I don’t lash out, nor do I get angry anymore. I’ve learned that below all their hate is simply fear, the fear of change and of the fear of the unknown. It was the same fears back when King was alive and it’s still the same fears now.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is a man I will forever respect and love. He stood tall because God was constantly trying to guide his way and he achieved something through nonviolent means that forever changed our country for the better. I’m thankful to Ronald Reagan for eventually signing a bill that created a federal holiday to honor this man. It continues to be observed every year on the third Monday of each January and is called Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
So with today being that day, my only hope in this entry is that I was able to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. with enough love and light to show how spiritually great the man was. I’m thankful for everything he did so peacefully that helped countless people in our country to gain equality. It’s my hope and prayer that his legacy will continue into eternity guiding our masses towards living peacefully to achieve equality for all.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson