Beyond the Byline: Happy Birthday Dr. King

WILKES-BARRE — Happy Birthday Dr. King.

Today would be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 95th birthday. But the civil rights activist was gunned down on April 4, 1968. Dr. King was 39 years old.

So today, we all should pause and remember Dr. King for the man he was and to recall the work he did during his all too short life.

On his birthday especially, Dr. King’s life should be celebrated.

Last year, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) took time to remember the life and work of Dr. King.

PHRC Executive Director Chad Dion Lassiter said, “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. King 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 passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

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 most Americans.

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.

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!’”

So today, celebrate Dr. King’s life. Read those quotes over and over and derive from them the inspiration to do better in your own lives.

And as Dr. King said, learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish together as fools.