Beyond the Byline: 55 years since Dr. King was killed

April 4 kind of came and went without much thought given to the significance of that day.

I’m talking about April 4, 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s been 55 years since that tragic day, certainly not a cause for celebration, but the life of Dr. King certainly should be celebrated.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) took time on April 4, 2023, to encourage all Pennsylvanians to take a moment to remember the life and work of Dr. King.

“The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission strives to live up to the lessons and teachings of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” said PHRC Executive Director Chad Dion Lassiter. “Dr. King popularized the term, Beloved Community, which encourages each of us to take responsibility for the common good. The PHRC has adopted this concept as a foundation for building a community that can address and dismantle hate and discrimination.”

In Dr. King’s last book, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community,” he warned us that a vigorous enforcement of civil rights will bring an end to segregated public facilities, but it cannot bring an end to fears, prejudice, pride and irrationality, which are the barriers to a truly integrated society.

“The goal of the PHRC is not just to remedy discriminatory action but to do so in a way that strengthens the bonds of community as a preventive measure,” said Lassiter. “The Beloved Community model allows us all to bequeath authentically peaceful communities to the next generation.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the most visible spokesperson and leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. Through nonviolence and civil disobedience, he led targeted protests against all forms of discrimination, through bus boycotts, marches and much more.

Because of the work of Dr. King and other activists during the Civil Rights Movement, the U.S. government passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The day before his assassination, he was in Memphis with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to support a sanitation workers strike.

Thanks to the PHRC for its diligence in making sure we never forget the significance of Dr. King’s teachings and his leadership.

For those of us who lived during the 1960s, we remember that back in those days, civil rights was a cause that saw some very ugly scenes. All those news clips were frightening to me.

Racism is a learned trait that just never seems to go away. It just refuses to be eradicated. Granted, many more people today are accepting and tolerant.

The civil rights struggle was an awful time in our history. The Rev. Dr. King was a man we all could look up to. He was a true servant leader.

As he said, Dr. King “had a dream.”

Dr. King offered so many meaningful, inspirational quotes:

• “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 today.”

• “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.”

• “The time is always right to do what is right.”

• “Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be the first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity.”

• “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

• “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

• “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

• “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

• ”Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

• “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”

• “When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”

Dr. King was an American Baptist minister and activist — one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

Dr. King would be 94 today.

Remember Dr. King and heed his words.

Our world will then be a much better place.