"I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation." Excerpt from Martin Luther King's "Acceptance Speech for the Nobel Peace Prize."

King lived among us for a short period of time... only 39 years. Within that time he felt the tremendous struggle of the African American people during the beginning of the Twentieth Century. King was raised by his Presbyterian father who was the preacher of the local church in their small suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. His parents embedded a strong moral code into a strong-willed Martin Jr. who would go on to become the greatest activist for his people that has ever been known. Early on at an age of twenty-two King became a preacher himself and began to speak the message of peace and acceptance to his congregations. This early period for Martin was an emotional struggle for he knew all to well that the message he was conveying was without a chance of ever being fulfilled by the Negro people he spoke to. The idea of equality, peace, and prosperity for all was not an option unless some major changes were made in the way the African American people were treated by the white race. King became an activist for his people due more to need than desire. He stood on the sidelines and watched in disgust the poverty and strife that ran like wildfire through the Black communities; particularily throughout the Southern States of Alabama and Georgia. He witnessed the supression of the Blacks within workplaces, schools, and even public dwellings. He could no longer stand silently by and watch the tragedy that was taking place. King began to organize meetings between the white and black leaders within Atlanta to try and resolve the outrageous conflict that was seeing his people die in the streets at the hands of violent white mobs. Support from the majority of the white community leaders, most of whom were men, was hard to find. King was confronted with harsh conflict both in these meetings and in the community. Never one to back down from a cause, King persisted in speaking his message of peace to anyone who would listen. The breaking point for King's involvement in the plight of the African American people came when a lady named Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus. Parks was jailed and fined more than five hundred dollars. King took this opportunity to organize a bus boycot which brought the transit system in Montgomery to a standstill. A peaceful demonstration walk was also staged in Montgomery. The walk resulted in King being arrested by the authorities and a small riot began. Martin Luther King spent the remainder of his short life fighting, usually peacefully, for African American equality in America. His life was cut dramatically short by an assissin's bullet on a muggy 4th of April morning in 1968. A man was immediately captured and arrested for the shooting because the police found an unused bullet near the possible location of the shooter. This bullet had a perfect finger print on it which led them to man named James Earl Ray . Even today, the idea of James Earl executing this assissination seem impossible. The person or persons responsible for this were very careful about their planning and execution. They were far too organized and clever to have left behind a solid clue like a bullet with a fresh print on it. Today James Earl Ray remains in jail for a crime that even King's own family refuses to believe he is responsible for. Today... where are we in the fight for the rights of the African American. One only needs to look at corporate America, the National Football League, even jobs like hotel cleaning staff. The obvious discrepancies within these few areas are staggering. Company CEO's in America are more than 87% Caucasian. The NFL is made up of over 84% African American players... yet only 1.5% of the coaches, managers or owners are African American. You don't have to look far in any hotel in the US to find African American cleaning staff while the front desk staff and management are predominately Caucasian. The life-long argument that is usually made is that "we all have choices." Really, is it reasonable to expect a forty-five year old black woman who grew up in the center of the civil rights movement to be a perfectly adjusted member of society at her age. She wasn't allowed to go to our schools, eat at our restaurants, drink from our fountains, even live in our neighborhoods. How can we now expect her to blend into our culture without our help and support. Can we expect her to play a larger role than a hotel-maid in our world? Is it really fair to say that an uneducated (due mainly to our impediment) fifty year old black man has the choice to move out of Harlem and begin a new life in another neighborhood? What are his chances for blending? What chance will WE give him? John Colvin (c)2000