TODAY ISN'T JUST ANOTHER FEDERAL HOLIDAY. IT'S REV. KING'S B-DAY!

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

On the Reverend Martin Luther King's birthday.

There he was leading protests using a middle-aged and diminutive Rosa Parks fighting to simply sit in front of a bus, seeing blacks getting beaten by Bull Connor's deputies and chewed up by police dogs and assaulted with water cannons just for asking for the right to seat at a lunch counter or to register to vote.

And then there was the backlash from the status quo with jailings, beatings, drummed up charges and FBI harassment and surveillance. Little black girls died in the bombing of Baptist churches. Supporters of the civil rights movement were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in dark, back country roads of the South by hoodlums of the KKK. 

King's answer to that violence against his people was unbelievable.

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." –Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” –Strength to Love

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” –Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” –Letter from Birmingham Jail

“I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.” –Letter from Birmingham Jail

“I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.” –Detroit 

“We have been repeatedly faced with a cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same school room.” –Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam


For this, he was shot April 4, 1968 in Memphis by a sniper who no one believed was acting alone.

Happy Birthday, Martin.