Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. King grew up a stellar young man. He sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind. He entered Morehouse College at age fifteen, having skipped his ninth and twelfth high school grades to get there. He completed Divinity Studies at Crozer Seminary and then a doctorate in Theology at Boston University.

In 1953, at age 24, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to comply with the Jim Crow laws that required her to give up her bus seat to a white man. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by King, soon followed. The boycott lasted for 382 days, the situation becoming so tense that King’s house was bombed. King was arrested during this campaign, an incident which received news coverage across the country, propelling Dr. King to national prominence. The case ultimately ended with a United States Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation on all public transport.

King was instrumental in the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, a group created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rights reform. King saw that organized, nonviolent protest against segregation and discrimination would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for racial equality and voting rights. On the heels of a rising tide of sympathetic public opinion, the Civil Rights Movement became the single most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s.

King organized and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights and other basic civil rights. He was among the leaders instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The march originally was conceived as an event to dramatize the desperate condition of southern blacks and an opportunity to express organizers’ concerns and grievances in the nation’s capital. The march was a resounding success. More than a quarter million people of diverse ethnicities attended the event, held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial spreading onto the National Mall and around the reflecting pool and to the very grounds on which we stand. At the time, it was the largest protest gathering in Washington’s history. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech electrified the crowd. It is regarded, along with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory.

Dr. King wrote and spoke drawing on his experience as a preacher. His “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, written in 1963, to engage pastors and churches in the struggle for justice and civil rights. The letter was written in response to local pastors who urged King to slow down and respect the segregation laws. In 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United States.

In spring 1965, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference attempted to organize a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. The first attempt to march on March 7 was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day, now known as Bloody Sunday, was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the Civil Rights Movement, the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King’s nonviolence strategy.

In 1968, King organized the “Poor People’s Campaign” to address issues of economic justice. The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C. demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States. He crisscrossed the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would descend on Washington—engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be—until Congress enacted a poor people’s bill of rights.

In April 3, 1968, at the Church of God in Christ headquarters, King prophetically told the crowd during his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech:

It really doesn’t matter what happens now… I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain! And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord!

On April 3, Dr. King was in Memphis addressing a rally. He was booked in the Lorraine Motel. While standing on the motel’s 2nd floor balcony, King was shot on April 4, 1968. He was dead at 39.

The assassination led to riots in more than 60 US cities. Five days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning for the lost civil rights leader. Almost 300,000 mourners attended his funeral that same day. Kings had asked that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to “feed the hungry”, “clothe the naked”, “be right on the [Vietnam] war question”, and “love and serve humanity”.

The men of 2007 honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for his devotion to following Jesus, his courage to face the evils of segregation and discrimination with reason and nonviolence, and his passion for the poor and the least of these in this country.

Stand in the Gap 2007
Washington, D.C.
October 6, 2007