Our Family Travel Logs: "I have a Dream!"

The image of Dr King emerging from granite reflects the steadfast resolve of an entire generation to achieve a fair and honest society - National Parks

Martin Luther King Jr (1929 - 1968)
I find it hard not to tear up when I think about what he did and how he did it - 'I have a dream' is one of the most powerful speeches of our time.
The son of a clergy man and teacher he developed the skills to enable him to believe in justice and publicly seek it.

He also was a clergy man based in Alabama and became engaged in social activism after Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white man in 1955 (at a time when there was segregation in the South). The incident lead to a year long bus boycott until the US Supreme Court stepped in and declared that segregation was against the law. It was only last month that a sculpture of Rosa Parks was unveiled in Capitol celebrating her resolve nearly 60 years ago (hers is the first black woman sculpture to be placed in the Capitol).

In 1957 Martin Luther King Jr became the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Council focusing on realising civil rights for all. He lead many peaceful protests against segregation and discrimination and was jailed for them but did not encourage retaliation against the violent responses to these protests. In 1963 he had great success in Birmingham where blacks were segregated in stores, the shops finally agreed to treating American blacks equally.

In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his work in bringing the 'dream' of equality closer for all Americans. Four years later in 1968 however he was assassinated (in his last public speech he stated that he might not get to the promised land with those before him which it seems almost prophesied his ending).

Every year America has a national holiday to honour him on the 3rd Monday in January, this year it was the very day that Obama was reinstated for his second term.