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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 2021)
6A | SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2021 | SIUSLAW NEWS KING from page 1A He decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and be- came a pastor at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Bap- tist Church, serving there from 1954 to 1960. During this time, King worked with members of the Southern Christian Leadership Coun- cil (SCLC) to formulate a long-term strategy for com- bating racism without the use of violence. Shoppe LOCAL #MyFlorence Shop. Eat. Support. SAVE. SHOP One of the most well- known incidents in the timeline of the civil rights movement is the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. In March of that year, 15-year-old Claudette Col- vin refused to give up her seat to a white man, which was against the law at the time. Nine months later, Rosa Parks was arrested in Mont- gomery for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus. Parks’ case became the basis for the decision rendered in Browder v. Gayle, which found the Alabama and Montgomery segregation laws unconstitutional. These two incidents led to a boycott of the public transit system coordinated by King and others at the SCLC. The boycott last- ed 385 days and sparked a series of violent reprisals against the group’s leaders, including the bombing of King’s house. However, King’s high- profile role in the boycott elevated him to national prominence and to the un- disputed leadership of the civil rights movement in America. King became pres- ident of the SCLC in 1957, propelling that organization to the forefront of the strug- gle for civil rights for all Americans. This was not without fur- ther hardship. In 1958, King was signing copies of his book, “Stride towards Free- dom, The Montgomery Sto- ry” when he was stabbed by a woman named Izola Cur- ry. King nearly died from the attack and was in the hospital for several weeks following surgery. Curry was found incompetent to stand trial and was placed in a psychiatric institution. Central to the message King shared with members of his congregation was the idea of nonviolence — or “Ahimsa” — taken from an earlier leader in the civil rights movement, Mahatma Ghandi. King came to greatly ap- preciate the non-violent approach taken by Ghandi and worked diligently to convince other members of the movement that violence would only serve to frighten and alienate large numbers of the public. His position on the use of violence had shifted over the years and he implored his brethren to reject vio- lence, even as he was the target of derision and hate for his efforts to facilitate a movement from subjuga- tion to integration. Threats of violence against his person and his family were common, yet King remained steadfast in his opposition to violence. He made an impassioned plea for calm after his house was bombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1956: “If you have weapons, take them home; if you do not have them, please do not seek to get them. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. Remember the words of Jesus: ‘He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword.’ We must love our white brothers, no mat- ter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them.” In 1964, King became the youngest person ever to re- ceive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work combatting ra- cial inequality. One of the most signifi- cant civil rights protests of the era took place in Selma, Ala., in 1965. Again, King was a central participant. Selma had been the site of a voter registration effort in 1964 when a local judge issued an action which was later found to be unconsti- tutional. King attended a meeting with officials of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s admin- istration on that March to request an injunction from the Justice Department pre- venting protesters from be- ing arrested for participat- ing in the scheduled march. He was unsuccessful in this attempt. Other leaders of the movement led a truncated march, which ended with police and residents beating and vilifying marchers. The reaction to the vio- lence, which was broadcast into American homes on the evening news, was sig- nificant and credited with changing the way the civil rights struggle was viewed by many in the country. King was also heavily in- volved with another of the most polarizing issues of the 1960s — the war in Vietnam. King believed the millions of dollars being spent on arms and bombs should be put to use in the African American community to provide job training and housing for the underprivileged, regardless of ethnicity. He also believed there was a connection between war and social injustice and made that argument in speeches and interviews. “A nation that contin- ues year after year to spend more money on military de- fense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” he argued. His antiwar stance alien- ated some of King’s main- stream supporters, like the Reverend Billy Graham, but this did not deter him from continuing to oppose the Vietnam war until his assas- sination. It was discovered years later, during the Congres- sional investigations under- taken by the Church Com- mittee, that King had been the target of a coordinated campaign ordered by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to surveil King and use the information to discredit him. Hundreds of recorded conversations in the FBI ar- chives detailed the thoughts and plans of the leadership of the civil rights movement and memos on how these recordings could be used to control the leaders of the SCLC and others involved in active protests against the federal government. King gave perhaps his most famous speech at the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” held on the Washington Mall, Aug. 28, 1963. King was one of the primary organizers of the march, which made specific demands including a law prohibiting racial dis- crimination in employment and an end to segregation in public schools. King’s impassioned plea to the half million people who attended the march is now considered by scholars and historians to be one of the most important speech- es in American history. “I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deep- ly rooted in the American dream…” said King. “… We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal … 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…” In March 1968, King was in Memphis to support black public works em- ployees. The workers were on strike for higher wages and better working condi- tions. King addressed a ral- Get Results...List With Tim. Tim Sapp Owner / Principal Broker 541 999-8230 Honoring MLK Jr. National Day of Service This year, the Baha’i com- KXCR and the Bahai com- Facebook pages after the munity of Florence Ore- munity of Florence Oregon’s broadcast. gon is collaborating with KXCR radio 90.7 to host a live broadcast in place of an SWANSON’S PEST MANAGEMENT in-person gathering, honor- ing the late Rev, Martin Lu- INSPECT – CORRECT – PROTECT ther King. The event will take place SUSTAINED PEST MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS Monday, Jan. 18, from 4 to 5 FOR YOUR HOME AND BUSINESS p.m. on 90.7 FM. SOME OF THE PESTS THAT WE TREAT: MLK Jr. Day is the only ANTS • COCKROACHES • FLEAS • RODENTS federal holiday designated BIRDS • BEDBUGS • STORED PRODUCTS PESTS as a national day of service. BEES/WASPS • GOPHERS It encourages all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities. It brings to light Dr. King’s vision and legacy of truth, love and Visit our Website: justice in how people serve www.swansonspm.com “Since 1983” their communities. Monday’s MLK radio pro- gram will feature “Voices of Our Community,” young and old residents who will speak, recite poetry and play music. Presenters will be doing a live Zoom call which will be streamed on KXCR 90.7 FM between 4 and 5 p.m. (KXCR’s Grab Bag Hour). The Zoom program will be available to view on both 541-997-4027 1-800-622-8993 SUPPORT ly in support of the striking workers where he seemed to be eerily speculating on his own demise, saying “… Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevi- ty has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land …” King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Loraine Motel as he was in the pro- cess of planning a national occupation of Washington D.C. to be called the Poor People’s Campaign. He was 39 years old. Just days after King’s assassination, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The FBI and local law en- forcement officers had King and his colleagues under surveillance at the time of the assassination and were unable to identify the lo- cation of the shooter at the time. Riots erupted in more than 100 cities across the country in the wake of King’s assassination and James Earl Ray was eventually arrested and convicted of the crime, although members of King’s family and inner circle be- lieve there were other indi- viduals or groups involved in the killing. 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