CIVIL rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addressing the crowds assembled in Washington, D.C.
KING Jr. was slain by an assassin at the Lorraine Motel at the age of 39.
Today marks the 53rd anniversary of the death of slain U.S. civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and it is traditionally an uplifting time with many positive events to look forward to in the community.
The threat of COVID-19 and escalating military action in the U.S. have overshadowed the celebrations of King Jr.’s life in many areas of the U.S., where the day is a national holiday.
King’s birthday is January 15, but his namesake day is celebrated on January 18 in many countries, including Canada, where there would be speeches and lists of his accomplishments renacted and retold, including his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Back then it was a different time in the U.S., similar to that of the people who briefly overtook the Capitol Building on January 6.
Those folks can learn from a 1963 event when 250,000 demonstrators marched to the Lincoln Memorial, next to the mob overrun Capitol, where King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech. The following year, President Lyndon Johnson got a law passed prohibiting all racial discrimination.
During the racially turbulent times, from 1957 and 1968, King Jr. traveled over six million miles and spoke over 2,500 times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest and police action. During that time he wrote five books and numerous articles.
The husband and father was arrested more than 20 times, assaulted at least four times, spat on and called many racist names.
He was also awarded five honorary degrees; named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.
The risk against his life was great. And, on the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, he was assassinated while in town to lead a protest march in support of striking garbage workers. He was 39.
James Earl Ray was charged after a two-year manhunt with killing the civil rights leader. Ray at one time hid out in a Toronto rooming house, on Ossington Ave., while on the lam from U.S. police.
He was arrested in June 1968 at London Heathrow Airport trying to leave England for Brussels on a false Canadian passport.
Ray was brought back to the U.S., where he escaped from prison, was recaptured and died at the age of 70 in April 1998 in a Nashville hospital.
Generations later, the name of Martin Luther King Jr. still lives on across the world.