Mr. Speaker, the subject of my Special Order today is the birthday of one of America's greatest citizens, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King's birthday will be celebrated next week with the…
Mr. Speaker, the subject of my Special Order today is the birthday of one of America's greatest citizens, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King's birthday will be celebrated next week with the national holiday on Monday, one of the only men or women to have a holiday named for them in this country. At one time, of course, we celebrated the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and now we celebrate Presidents Day. But we celebrate Dr. King's Day, a great American and an individual who changed this country for the better and whose life is a testament to fortitude and courage, faith, and a desire to make America better.
On April 4, 1968, 40 years ago this year, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. That was a defining moment in the history of America, indeed, in the history of the world. While Dr. King's death should not and will not ever be forgotten, I think that today on what would have been his 79th
birthday, we should remember his life because it was his life, his actions and his eloquent words, that truly challenged us as a Nation to consider where we were and where we could go.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15, 1929, the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta King. As we all know, Dr. King followed in his father's footsteps and became a minister at the age of 24 in Montgomery, Alabama, where just 2 years later Rosa Parks refused to comply with the Jim Crow laws, which required her to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. The subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Rev. King, changed America. The boycott lasted over a year but resulted in the Supreme Court decision outlawing racial discrimination on public transportation. Only in his mid-20s, Martin Luther King's passion and commitment were already affecting the laws of our Nation.
During his life, Dr. King's house was bombed and his government wiretapped his conversations. But Dr. King never wavered from his commitment to nonviolent change. Dr. King turned a mirror on America, and the reflection was not good. It was ugly. America was not the land of the free but it was a land built by the enslaved. The very Capitol Building in which I speak and in which we make our laws was built by slaves. Dr. King pulled back the quasi-fiction that has so often been touted as patriotism as if to say, ``but what about these Americans?'' And those are his words: ``But what about these Americans?'' Jim Crow laws, which had created two Americas, which had denied access and opportunity for so long were held up for examination, and they failed the examination, as they should have.
We are not there, ladies and gentlemen. I wish we were. I wish we had achieved the dream where the content of one's character is what each person is judged by, not by the color of one's skin. We are not there, but the good news, the positive message that Dr. King has etched into our national conscience is that one man can make a difference. One young man can step forward and live his life with purpose and dignity, can become the voice of all those whose voices have been stilled, whose hope has been lost. No assassin's bullet could stop what Martin Luther King had begun. Today, as we celebrate a birth which has changed us and which continues to challenge us, let us remember his dream.
Dr. King's words are what he's best remembered for. And in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, his words will be played constantly over the weekend and through Monday as we remember how he challenged us, how he inspired us in the 1950s and in the 1960s. Radio station WLOK will be, I know, having a tribute to him in Memphis, and other places all over the country will do the same. And in Memphis there will be a basketball game, a national basketball game, that will celebrate civil rights victories of this country. Particularly Bob Lanier will be there and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and others. And we look at the steps which we have taken in this country to make the country better through sports and basketball, and I commend David Stern and the NBA for having that game in Memphis on Dr. King's birthday.
At this time I would like to read some quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as will be read and as will be heard throughout this country in the coming week and the coming weekend. Many of them resonate with the issues of today.
``A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.'' And we need more leaders like that today who mold consensus.
``A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.'' Remember, Mr. Speaker, Dr. King was speaking during the time of the Vietnam War. We have another Vietnam, I think, today in Iraq, and we are spending more money not on military defense but on military offense and leaving programs of social importance behind. And I question the spirituality of where this country presently is, spending so much in Iraq and so little in America.
``A right delayed is a right denied.'' And there are so many rights which have not been granted to people and not just on the basis of race and religion and national origin but also of sexual orientation. ``A right delayed,'' Dr. King said, ``is a right denied.''
Dr. King said, ``Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better.'' And indeed they have. We are a country of minorities making for a great majority, and when we don't respect the rights of the minorities, we endanger ourselves.
Dr. King said, ``An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.'' And I would ask each of my colleagues to hold that thought in their minds when they vote and to realize it's not just the nature of their districts and their individual concerns which are important but the broader concerns of this country, as Dr. King said, ``the broader concerns of all humanity.''
Dr. King said, ``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.''
Dr. King and many civil rights workers violated the law, the law of the country, mostly in the South, Jim Crow laws, that said people were separate and inherently unequal. He did that with Rosa Parks when they challenged the laws that said African Americans were to ride on the back of the bus. And he challenged, along with President Johnson and this Nation in the 1960s, the law that said there could be separate establishments and would be by law for people based on race for entertainment, different public facilities, eating establishments, hotels and motels, colleges and schools. Those were wrong laws. They needed to be challenged, and they were challenged by Dr. King and many civil rights leaders, and the world changed in the 1960s.
Dr. King said, ``At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love.'' He also said, ``Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies or else? The chain reaction of evil, hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars, must be broken or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.'' And, Mr. Speaker, I reflect on this when I think about what we are doing in the Middle East. Hate begets hate. Wars produce more wars. And we are in an abyss.
Dr. King said, ``He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.'' One must actively oppose evil. And oftentimes in the debates in Congress, you have to remember Dante, and Dr. King has a quote similar to Dante, that the warmest spots in hell are reserved for people who in times of controversy stand on the sidelines. Certainly something Dr. King did not do.
In Dr. King's great speech just outside the Capitol on the mall, which I recall watching on television and which I am thrilled to be a Member of this House of Representatives so near to the mall where Dr. King gave his ``I have a dream'' speech, he said, ``I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a Nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
``I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
``I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.''
As I said earlier, Dr. King's dream has not totally been achieved, but we are getting closer to it. We are engaged in a Presidential debate where his words and actions are subject of much debate. But I have no doubt that Dr. King would be proud of all the candidates in the Democratic column who are running for this office and know that they are children of Dr. King's dream. To see an African American gentleman have a legitimate chance to be President of the United States and to see a woman have that same opportunity is what Dr. King talked about.
And they should be judged not by the color of their skin or by their gender but by the content of their character.
``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'' Dr. King said. And that's something to be remembered when we see nooses hung in small towns or people being shot, tied behind cars because of aspects of their personage of which they had no choice.
``It may be true,'' Dr. King said, ``that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.'' And that is important. We have a Senate and a House that passed a condemnation of the lynching that took place in this country in the 20th century. And this House, hopefully, will pass another proposition that says that we apologize for having been part of a Nation that allowed for slavery to occur and had laws that permitted it and for Jim Crow laws that saddled this country with unjustice for 100 years thereafter.
Dr. King said, ``Life's most persistent and urgent question is what are you doing for others?'' And that's a question that my friend Irbin Salky has often said to me, that the purpose of why we are here on Earth is to help others. And it's part of the Judeo-Christian religion and creed to care for others, and that's why we are here.
Again, Iraq and Vietnam, they are parallels, and Dr. King's words ring true today. He said, ``One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.''
Indeed, many of the hopes of people in our inner cities, people that are left behind by what has been considered a great economic opportunity for many Americans, mostly the richest, have been left behind because of the moneys we have spent in Iraq rather than spending them on the people in this country.
There are many parallels, and I think I know where Dr. King would be on the issue of war and peace, on the issue of choosing Iraq rather than choosing America, the cities that have been neglected, the inner cities, Appalachia, Katrina victims, and others. Dr. King said: ``The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.'' He always felt that the arc was bending in the right direction, although slowly. And justice and change do move slowly but they do move. We have change. Change is not revolutionary; it's evolutionary. It happens, but it happens in increments. But Dr. King and people like him made it move at a stronger pace, and it's necessary to have agents of change. Agents of change have moved the society forward.
One of the most prophetic quotes that I think I saw, and there are so many to review in thinking about Dr. King, he said: ``The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.'' I know from my sponsorship of an apology for slavery and Jim Crow and some of the comments I have read, there's a lot of guilt in this country and it's making it difficult for people to engage in a dialog and understand and honestly see what slavery did for many people's lives. Not only did it cause the African Americans and have them be enslaved, but it caused a lot of people to make a lot of money and have a lot of great economic fortune at the expense of the enslaved, and then of the Jim Crow citizen that served their needs for 100 years.
The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important. I think about Martin Luther King, who died at the age of 39; I think of John Kennedy, who served in this House and lived to the age of 46; I think of his brother, Robert Kennedy, who died at age 42, but affected so many of us. All of these three men affected me in a great way. Their assassinations in 1963 and 1968 affected this world, but it affected me in a great way. It was the quality, not the longevity, of their lives that was important. And they didn't wait for tomorrow. They had the fierce urgency of now that Dr. King talked about to make a change, to make a change and a difference while they were on this Earth and to affect their fellow man and fellow woman.
``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.'' Once again, Dr. King implores us to have moral character and fiber and to stand up for what is important for America. And he said: ``We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.''
Dr. Martin Luther King was a special man. He took his talents and he used them for his fellow man. He inspired us all. This country and this world is much the greater for his life. It is indeed a testament to him that this Congress under the unyielding leadership of Representative John Conyers passed a bill to make his birthday a national holiday. It's a national holiday that should be held in high esteem by all men and women in this country, because Dr. King was special and unique and stood up for all people and stood for the height of American ideals.
I hope that everybody will take a moment over the weekend and on Monday on the celebration of his birthday to think about some of the things that Dr. King stood for: challenging the system to make it better; for peace; for people who have been left behind in our society; doing for the least of these and trying to make the world a better place.
My city bears great scars for his death having taken place there. There was nothing unique to my city. It was something wrong with this country that somebody out there put a reward up for Dr. King's death and that somebody wanted to claim that reward and didn't have a regard for the humanity of Dr. King. In Memphis now there's a National Civil Rights Museum dedicated to the civil rights movement and to Dr. King's life and ideals, and I invite and encourage everyone to come to Memphis to visit the civil rights museum, which is at the spot where Dr. King was killed at the Lorraine Motel, which has been preserved, and to celebrate his life and to celebrate his values, not only on his birthday but on every day, for Dr. King was a great American. I am just lucky, as we all are, that he came my way.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time, and I know that you, like me, will reflect on Dr. King's works and will keep him in our hearts as we try to do what's right for America in this 110th Congress.
