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| Source:UNAC/UCHP- Dr. Martin L. King, giving one of his great speeches. |
"Many chapters in the story of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. are well-known to Americans. The I Have a Dream speech. The Nobel Peace Prize. The Mountaintop speech. His Letter from a Birmingham Jail. His commitment to nonviolence. All the incredible accomplishments of a visionary.
Every time I hear our President Donald Trump speak and give one of his shit-hole comments or says something else that is disgusting about an entire group of Americans and people, I think about the worst and most ignorant of Americans. Bigots and racists from all races and ethnicities in America.
America, which could be called the world instead because America represents the entire world as far as everyone now lives here and represents the best of America which is our diversity and individualism. The ability for all Americans to be exactly who they are and make the best life for them that they possibly can. Our diversity and individualism represents the best of America, while Donald Trump and his backers including Neo-Nazis and other European-American hate groups, representing the worst of America.
Dr. Martin Luther King represents the best of America. A Silent Generation baby born in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression. Which for an African-American born in them and born in the deep South in Georgia, would be worst than a depression, compared with European-American babies and even English-Protestant-American babies born during the same time and period. Born not to poverty but certainly modest means and having to fight racism his whole life but certainly growing up and coming through all of that working his way through college and becoming one of the best Reverends and religious leaders, as well as civil rights leaders that America has ever seen.
Dr. King represents the best of America because he proves that every American regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or who they were born to and the economic status of their parents, can make it in America if they want to make it in America and do the work to make it in America. Live a responsible life, get themselves a good education, and then apply those skills in the workforce. That it’s not about how people were born or who they were born too, that determines what kind of life you’ll have in America, but what you do with your life after you’re born that determines if you make it in America.
Dr. King’s life and vision for America with his I Have a Dream speech, represents America at its best. I mean think about this for a minute: “I have a dream where my children will one day be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.” That is what America is about and should be about. That every American regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender, can make it in America is they simply apply themselves and get the skills that they need to make it in America.
Our series on Martin Luther King Jr., to mark the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, covers some of the lesser known parts of his history. Follow the links below to discover more about this civil rights icon.
1. Jay Smith, United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals’ (UNAC/UHCP’s) counsel, who shared a story his mentor, Jerome A. “Buddy” Cooper, told about King’s Birmingham campaign.
2. King is perhaps best known for his iconic 1963 I Have a Dream speech. Less is known about predecessors to that speech, like the one King gave to the AFL-CIO in 1961.
3. King began with prepared remarks, the most famous part of the speech containing the theme ‘I Have a Dream’ was created on Aug. 23, 1963, as King addressed the crowd of more than 250,000 on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
4. King accepts the Nobel Peace Prize and then joins workers on strike in Atlanta to publicize their campaign during 10 days in December 1964.
5. International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 made King an honorary longshoreman in 1967. When King was assassinated, the ILWU showed they truly regarded him as one of their own.
6. Jerry Wurf, AFSCME’s president in 1968, was a strong and consistent supporter of King, as well as the civil rights movement in general."
From Talking Union
"New Covenant Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois, on 9 April 1967"
Every time I hear our President Donald Trump speak and give one of his shit-hole comments or says something else that is disgusting about an entire group of Americans and people, I think about the worst and most ignorant of Americans. Bigots and racists from all races and ethnicities in America.
America, which could be called the world instead because America represents the entire world as far as everyone now lives here and represents the best of America which is our diversity and individualism. The ability for all Americans to be exactly who they are and make the best life for them that they possibly can. Our diversity and individualism represents the best of America, while Donald Trump and his backers including Neo-Nazis and other European-American hate groups, representing the worst of America.
Dr. Martin Luther King represents the best of America. A Silent Generation baby born in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression. Which for an African-American born in them and born in the deep South in Georgia, would be worst than a depression, compared with European-American babies and even English-Protestant-American babies born during the same time and period. Born not to poverty but certainly modest means and having to fight racism his whole life but certainly growing up and coming through all of that working his way through college and becoming one of the best Reverends and religious leaders, as well as civil rights leaders that America has ever seen.
Dr. King represents the best of America because he proves that every American regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or who they were born to and the economic status of their parents, can make it in America if they want to make it in America and do the work to make it in America. Live a responsible life, get themselves a good education, and then apply those skills in the workforce. That it’s not about how people were born or who they were born too, that determines what kind of life you’ll have in America, but what you do with your life after you’re born that determines if you make it in America.
Dr. King’s life and vision for America with his I Have a Dream speech, represents America at its best. I mean think about this for a minute: “I have a dream where my children will one day be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.” That is what America is about and should be about. That every American regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender, can make it in America is they simply apply themselves and get the skills that they need to make it in America.
So when you hear Donald Trump or some other shit-hole, make a shit-hole comment, treat that comment or comments for what they are. But also remember there is another vision for America that is more accurate about what America really is and represents America at it’s best.
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