While Mr. King's true birthday is the 15 of January, it was moved to its present location as were many other Holidays to provide for a three day weekend.
I did not post anything yesterday, but thought a bunch on him. I am old enough to remember various events he attended over the years, but the three that stick in my mind the most are the one where he and many of his followers were set upon by dogs, police with clubs and more.
The first was the pictures on TV and in the Newspaper showing his marching into Selma and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, on March 7th, 1965, where they were met with some of the worst brutality of armed men against unarmed marchers, I had ever seen. I watched and thought what have we become? In Truth, all that happened was the Truth of our bigoty and racism out in the open for one and all to see. TV had come of age. And nothing has really changed except maybe the extent of the numbers?
The second time was his "I have a dream speech" in March 1963 in Washington D.C.
Lastly, the night he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on 4 April 1965.
But in fact there are many times that he was in the forefront of shattering events in the U.S. that changed the scenario for Blacks and Whites in the U.S.
Many have put his death right up there with John Kennedy in 1963 and Robert Kennedy also in
June 1968? For sure his death and that of Robert Kennedy turned this Country upside down. One had to see the riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention to understand just how chaotic the times were in that year.
Yet now, the Democrats have turned their backs on their Black Supporters, while still telling them how much they need the Democratic Party?
In that year of 1968, I was at Fort Ord, California, and the Centralized Promotions for E-7 to E- 9 were just beginning. They were supposed to take the "local Politics" out of promoting NCOs from Junior NCOs to the top three grades. Due to the clear discrimination that had occurred for decades against Blacks being promoted, many Blacks were promoted at about the top of each years list of approved promotions.
Now, this was a two edged sword and it left a lot of bitterness for years. Men who had been passed over several if not many times were promoted- period. But the tradeoff which caused the bitterness was that others who had no hand in the discrimination but were White, were passed over. Sometimes for several years themselves. So this is where one wrong over a period of many years created a second one.
I know of two instances where E-6s who were falling down drunk from Retreat to Reveille got promoted and clearly under the Peter Principle had truly maxed out at E-6. But the system had become supposedly "Color Blind", and mistakes were bound to happen. I believe from what I observe today that the system is far fairer than it was prior to 1968.
In any case, Mr. King did huge things that helped to improve the lives of the Blacks in the U.S.. Sadly, many programs put in place from 1964 onward were under utilized by the Blacks and they instead became the very Program Dependent Group, we see today.
I was asked Monday, why I had not posted anything on Monday? As noted above, I had to thing back over the years on what stood out to me? With no disrespect, he is still dead, it is still his National Birthday albeit my posting is a day late. And I am comfortable with what I posted as being what is the Truth. 'nuff said'.