The United States celebrated what would have been Martin Luther King Jr‘s 94th birthday, with advocates urging the country to commemorate the assassinated civil rights leader’s legacy by truly tackling racial injustice.
Washington, January 17 (RHC)-- The United States celebrated on Monday what would have been Martin Luther King Jr‘s 94th birthday, with advocates urging the country to commemorate the assassinated civil rights leader’s legacy by truly tackling racial injustice.
Monday’s federal holiday -- Martin Luther King Jr Day -- comes nearly 55 years after the April 1968 killing of King, who led a non-violent movement pushing for equality for Black Americans throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
The U.S. civil rights movement, buoyed by King and other leaders, led to the end of blatantly discriminatory Jim Crow laws in the country’s south, while spurring several landmark pieces of legislation. These included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that ended segregation and banned workplace discrimination, as well as 1965’s Voting Rights Act, which sought to end discrimination at the polls.
Reverend William Barber, a prominent social justice activist who gave the sermon at the 2021 inauguration of President Joe Biden, said Monday’s holiday should not be marked solely by commemorations, however. “We don’t need museums, but movements,” Barber tweeted. “Not commemorations, but consecrations to dedicate our lives to the unfinished business of MLK & so many others who loved justice.”
King’s youngest daughter, Bernice King, also urged Americans to be proactive in how they honoured her father on Monday. “Determine how you’ll disrupt unjust systems & thinking with nonviolent strategy. Support policies that reflect higher consciousness. Make no excuses for hate,” she wrote on Twitter.
This year’s Martin Luther King Jr Day comes amid growing concerns in the U.S. over white nationalist rhetoric and violence targeting Black people as well as members of the LGBTQ community. A flurry of U.S. state laws restricting access to voting also has prompted calls for action in recent months, with advocates saying the measures most adversely affect racial minorities and marginalised communities.
The efforts have been fuelled by former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was marred by widespread fraud. The issue of voting rights has been a dominant theme of Martin Luther King Jr Day events on Monday,
