In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”, he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure. source.
I think MLK was a great man, with great vision. We are all better today because of his work. However, MLK’s message and efforts are lost with men like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Malcom X, Farrakhan.
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Related Reading:
Islam: Spirit and FormAlthough Islam as a faith may be noted for the degree to which it is practiced, unfortunately usually in our times this practice has lacked the spirit of Islam. The rituals are mechanically performed as if only a kind of social custom while the spirit of Islam has been almost totally lost. This book aims to illuminate the spiritual radiance of Islamic worship and to clothe it in stories of the lives of the prophets and their companions and also in the lives of exemplary Sufis. In particular many references to the poetry of Rumi, Yunus Emre and other Sufis aim to bond the passion of our spiritual practice with its ritual form. The chapters on paying charity and poor-due possess great beauty. The deep analysis they afford of the economic philosophy integral in Islam, abundantly demonstrates their inherent value in our grossly material world.
The Philosophy of the Teachings of IslamThe essay entitled The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam was written in Urdu by Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Promised Messiah and Mahdi(as) at the invitation of Swami Shugan Chandar Sahib under whose auspicious the conference of Great Religions was held in Lahore Town Hall from 26th to 29th December 1896. The scholars of Muslims, Christians, Arya Samaj and other religions were invited to represent their religions at the conference of Great Religion. They were required to write on the following five topics on the basis of their Holy Books.1. The physical, moral and spiritual states of man
2. What is the state of man after death?
3. The object of man's life and the means of its attainment,
4. The operation of the practical ordinances of the Law in this life and the next
5. Sources of Divine knowledge.
Allah revealed to the Promised Messiah(as) that his essay will be declared supreme over all other essays. And so it was. For instance the Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, wrote that Hadrat Ahmad's essay was the only one worth mentioning and the only one paper which was commended highly. The essay has been published in several languages in different countries.
It is the best and most comprehensive introduction to Islam within the scope of the above five questions. The book was translated into English by Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan Sahib.
Black Power : The Politics of LiberationIn 1967, this revolutionary work exposed the depths of systemic racism in this country and provided a radical political framework for reform: true and lasting social change would only be accomplished through unity among African-Americans and their independence from the preexisting order. An eloquent document of the civil rights movement that remains a work of profound social relevance 25 years after it was first published.
THE COLORED PATRIOTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: With Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons: To Which is Added a Brief Survey of the Condition and Prospects of Colored AmericansIntroduction written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. With new Index of names. This book has been resurrected after lying dormant for nearly a century. Reportedly used as a reference and textbook in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, it has recently been the subject of several high-profile discussions on American History as it relates to the treatment and recognition of African American contributions at the time of our nation's founding. In Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, Mr. Nell has documented the African American heroes and patriots who fought during the Revolutionary War, many of which, apparently, have been forgotten by historians and writers. He identifies many black soldiers, including Crispus Attucks, the first martyr in the Boston Massacre; Henry Hill, a veteran of numerous battles, including Lexington, Princeton, and Yorktown; Peter Salem, Titus Coburn, Alexander Ames, Barzilai Lew, Cato Howe, Seymour Burr, Jeremy Jonah and numerous others. In addition to identifying and discussing many of these individuals and the events in which they participated, he often narrates subsequent historical events and or issues in which they were the subject. This work is impressive not only for its wide-ranging scope but for its rich and thorough documentation. Information was obtained from such repositories as the Massachusetts state house archives, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Suffolk County Probate Records Office, inscriptions from graveyards in Middletown, Connecticut, North Attleboro and Concord, Massachusetts, as well as the Massachusetts State House, Federal Records, Newspapers throughout the United States, and many other publications. In addition to these sources, he also relied upon the memories, accounts, and writings of individuals, as well as other institutional records. This book is an excellent source for historians, genealogists, and instructors of African American history. Softcover, (1855), reprinted 2010, Illus., Index, 415 pp.
Negro (La Serie del Circulo) (Spanish Edition)Nada es como parece cuando se estrellan los suenos y la realidad.
Huyendo de sus agresores por callejones abandonados, Thomas Hunter apenas se escapa yendose al techo de un edificio. Luego una bala silenciosa de la noche roza su cabeza... y su mundo se vuelve negro. De la negrura surge la asombrosa realidad de otro mundo, un mundo donde domina el mal. Un mundo en el que Thomas Hunter se enamora de una mujer hermosa. Pero luego se acuerda del sueno en el que lo perseguian por un callejon mientras extiende su mano para tocar la sangre en su cabeza. ?Donde termina el sueno y comienza la realidad? Cada vez que se queda dormido en un mundo, se despierta en otro. Pero en ambos, le aguarda un desastre catastrofico... quizas incluso sea causado por el.
