Dr. King Left a Legacy

“If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that he was a marked man and sensed that he would not live a long life. After all, being an outspoken black man in the Deep South in the 1950s and the 1960s meant that you had a target on your back and crosshairs on your chest.

And yet, knowing that, Dr. King still led the Montgomery Bus Boycott for 385 days from December 1955 to December 20, 1956… a demonstration that was so successful that it catapulted him to national prominence. Along with Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and James Lowery, King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, which further raised his civil rights profile.

A near-fatal knife attack followed in 1958 as well as numerous arrests for nonviolent civil disobedience. During the Birmingham Campaign in April 1963, King used his time behind bars to write the immortal “Letter from Birmingham Jail” which still inspires civil rights advocates today.

Four months later, Dr. King was one of the “Big Six” who organized the March on Washington where he delivered his moving and eloquent “I Have a Dream” speech. The next year saw King awarded the Nobel Peace Prize amid the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was another legislative achievement for King, but it was marred by the horrific events on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on Bloody Sunday that same year.

The next few years saw Dr. King start to speak out against the Vietnam War and on behalf of the poor and downtrodden of all races. He became deeply concerned about inner-city living conditions in Chicago and was in the midst of organizing the Poor People’s Campaign when an assassin’s bullet struck him down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Dr. King knew for what he was living – equal rights for all people regardless of race, creed, or color – and so, he was prepared to die for a cause greater than himself. And that, my friend, is why he is so fondly remembered today.

A perfect man? Not by a long shot. But a man who lived a life of purpose? You’d better believe it!

“There are many more things that Jesus did. If all of them were written down, I suppose that not even the world itself would have space for the books that would be written.” John 21:25 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President