“I have a Dream.” These four iconic words are a stark reminder that the man who spoke them in a powerful and eloquent speech in 1963 did not – as he predicted – live to see that dream. On Monday, January 15, 2018, we celebrate what would have been Dr. King’s 89th birthday.
One of the greatest civil rights leaders in American history lost his life to an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968. Fifty years later, African Americans are still fighting to realize the dream he envisioned.
In the city of Atlanta, Dr. King’s birthplace, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change [“The King Center”] hosted a special week of events to commemorate the birthday of late Baptist minister and civil rights icon.
King Center Vision:
The King Center envisions a world where global brotherhood and sisterhood are not a dream but the state of humankind.
King Center Mission:
The King Center serves as the premier resource dedicated to educating a global network of allied individuals and organizations working collectively using the philosophy and methods of nonviolence to create the Beloved Community that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned.
King Center Events for Monday:
10am – 1pm: THE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. ANNUAL COMMEMORATIVE SERVICE Ebenezer Baptist Church, beginning at 10am. The service will be held at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Horizon Sanctuary. FREE & Open to the Public, but seating will be limited.
2pm: KING WEEK HOLIDAY MARCH & RALLY Starting at Auburn Avenue and Peachtree Street FREE & Open to the Public The March is held on Auburn Avenue from Peachtree Street to Jackson Street. The Rally is held on Auburn Avenue.
6:00 – 8pm: BELOVED COMMUNITY TALKS: LET’S BRIDGE THE RACIAL DIVIDE ACROSS URBAN, SUBURBAN AND RURAL AMERICA The King Center, The Yolanda D. King Theatre For The Performing Arts – FREE & Open to the Public. This signature event will take place before a live audience, and streamed via Facebook and promoted across national media and major social media channels.
Monday, January 15, 2018 – Wednesday, April 4, 2018 GLOBAL
“LOVE FOR HUMANITY: 50 ACTS OF SERVICE OR KINDNESS” CAMPAIGN. This worldwide campaign will launch on the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday and conclude on April 4th. Participants will commit to completing fifty acts of kindness or service during the time period that has positive impact on their community.
The current political climate in this country, in fact, around the world, is evidence that Dr. King’s work is far from done, his dream still deferred. The hope many African American’s felt after the election of the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, coupled with the hope of a truly post racial society, “The Audacity of Hope” feels further away that it did just eight years ago.
Throughout this special week of celebration, it seems more appropriate than ever to remember Dr. King’s own words to remind us of the pride and the power that still live in those timeless passages, and the knowledge that the work he began is still ours to continue.
“Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the unlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” — “I have a Dream,” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963
Happy Birthday, Dr. King.
