[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 55 (Friday, April 4, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E524]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 46TH ANNIVERSARY OF ASSASSINATION OF REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 4, 2014

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, 46 years ago today, one of the greatest 
leaders in the history of our country was felled by an assassin's 
bullet in Memphis, Tennessee.
  The assassin may have killed the dreamer, but he could not kill the 
dream because as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in August 
1963, the dream is ``deeply rooted'' in the American Dream.
  The life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds us that 
nothing is impossible when we are guided by the better angels of our 
nature.
  So it is fitting that we pause to remember the life and legacy of a 
man who brought hope and healing to America.
  It is proper that we remember the man of action, who put his life on 
the line for freedom and justice every day.
  Dr. King knew that it was not enough just to talk the talk, that he 
had to walk the walk for his words to be credible.
  Dr. King walked the walk. He went to jail 29 times to achieve freedom 
for others. He knew he would pay the ultimate price for his leadership, 
but kept on marching and protesting and organizing anyway.
  Dr. King once said that we all have to decide whether we ``will walk 
in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive 
selfishness.
  ``Life's most persistent and nagging question,'' he said, is ``what 
are you doing for others?''
  And when Dr. King talked about the end of his mortal life in one of 
his last sermons, on February 4, 1968 in the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist 
Church, even then he lifted up the value of service as the hallmark of 
a full life:

       I'd like somebody to mention on that day Martin Luther 
     King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others,'' he said. 
     ``I want you to say on that day, that I did try in my life . 
     . . to love and serve humanity.

  Above all, Dr. King was always willing to speak truth to power.
  When the life of Dr. Martin Luther King was stolen from us, he was a 
very young 39 years old.
  People remember that Dr. King died in Memphis, but few can remember 
why he was there.
  On that fateful day in 1968 Dr. King came to Memphis to support a 
strike by the city's sanitation workers.
  The garbage men there had recently formed a chapter of the American 
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to demand better 
wages and working conditions.
  But the city refused to recognize their union, and when the 1,300 
employees walked off their jobs the police broke up the rally with mace 
and billy clubs.
  It was then that union leaders invited Dr. King to Memphis.
  Despite the danger he might face entering such a volatile situation, 
it was an invitation he could not refuse.
  Not because he longed for danger, but because the labor movement was 
intertwined with the civil rights movement for which he had given up so 
many years of his life.
  The death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will never 
overshadow his life. That is his legacy as a dreamer and a man of 
action.
  It is a legacy of hope, tempered with peace. It is a legacy not quite 
yet fulfilled.
  I hope that Dr. King's vision of equality under the law is never lost 
to us, who in the present, toil in times of unevenness in our equality.
  For without that vision--without that dream--we can never continue to 
improve on the human condition.
  It is for us, the living, to continue that fight today and forever, 
in the great spirit that inspired the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

                          ____________________