[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 54 (Monday, April 11, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E396-E397]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





 THE 48TH ANNIVERSARY OF ASSASSINATION OF REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, 
                                  JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 11, 2016

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this year, the nation observes for the 
48th year, the anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr. Each year on this day, Americans remember the life and 
legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. Fatally shot 
at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday, April 4,1968, 
at the age of 39, Dr. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where 
he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. that evening.
  He was a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement and Nobel 
laureate for Peace who was known for his creative use of nonviolence 
and civil disobedience. Our hearts continue beating, rejoicing his 
enduring legacy, and knowing that nothing is impossible when we are 
guided by the better angels of our nature. The incident of domestic 
terrorism that took the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life, 
reminds us of his belief, ``that unarmed truth and unconditional love 
will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily 
defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.''
  Dr. King confronted the risk of death and made that recognition part 
of his philosophy. He taught that murder could not stop the struggle 
for equal rights. His inspiring words filled a great void in our 
nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that 
truly lived by its noblest principles. Yet, Dr. King knew that it was 
not enough just to talk the talk; he had to walk the walk for his words 
to be credible.
  And so we commemorate on this day a man of action, who put his life 
on the line for freedom and justice every day. We honor the courage of 
a man who endured harassment, threats and beatings, and even bombings. 
We commemorate the man who went to jail 29 times to achieve freedom for 
others, and who knew he would pay the ultimate price for his 
leadership, but kept on marching, 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?'' Strikingly, when Dr. King 
discussed the end of his mortal life during one of his last sermons, 
``I've Been to the Mountain Top,'' on February 4, 1968, in the pulpit 
of Ebenezer Baptist Church, even then he lifted the value of service 
upward as the hallmark of a full life, remarking: ``I'd like somebody 
to mention on that day, Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life 
serving others. I want you to say on that day, that I did try in my 
life . . . to love and serve humanity.''
  We should also remember that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
was, above all, a person who was always willing to speak the truth. 
There is perhaps no better example of Dr. King's moral integrity and 
consistency than his criticism of the Vietnam War, waged by the Johnson 
Administration; an administration that was otherwise a friend and 
champion of civil and human rights.
  Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 
1929. His youth was spent in our country's Deep South, then run by Jim 
Crow laws and the Klu Klux Klan. For young African-Americans, it was an 
environment even more dangerous than the one they face today. 
Nonetheless, a young Martin managed to find a dream; one that he pieced 
together from his readings, including the Bible, classics, 
philosophical literature, and just about any other book he could get 
his hands on. Not only did those books allow him to educate himself, 
they also allowed him to work through the destructive and traumatic 
experiences of blatant discrimination, and the discriminatory abuse 
inflicted on him, his family, and humanity.
  The life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that we honor today, 
could have turned out to be the life of just another African-American 
who would have had to learn to be happy with the limitations of his 
circumstances--with only what he was allowed. He learned however, to 
use his imagination and his dreams to see right through those ``White 
Only'' signs--to see the reality that all men, and women, regardless of 
their place of origin, their gender, or their creed, are created equal. 
Through his studies, Dr. King learned that training his mind and 
broadening his intellect effectively shielded him from the demoralizing 
effects of segregation and discrimination. Dr. King was a dreamer. His 
dreams were a tool, through which he was able to lift his mind beyond 
the reality of his segregated society and into a realm where it was 
possible that white and black, red, yellow and brown, and all others 
live and work alongside each other and prosper.
  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. however, was not an idle 
daydreamer. He shared his visions through speeches that motivated 
others to join the nonviolent effort to lift themselves from poverty 
and isolation and create an even better America where equal justice is 
a fact of life. In the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Thomas 
Jefferson wrote, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 
Men are Created Equal.''
  At that time and for centuries to come, African-Americans were 
historically, culturally, socially and legally excluded from inclusion 
in the institutional execution of that declaration. Dr. King's ``I Have 
a Dream'' Speech, delivered nearly 53 years ago, on August 28, 1963, 
was a clarion call to each citizen of this great nation that still 
echoes today. His request was simply and eloquently conveyed--asking 
America to allow its citizens to live out the words written in its 
Declaration of Independence and to have a place in this nation's Bill 
of Rights.
  Provoking that clarion call, the 1960s were a time of great crisis 
and conflict. The nightmares of Americans were filled with troubling 
images that rose like lava from volcanoes of violence and the terrors 
that they had to face, both domestically and internationally. The 
decade bore the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War; and Americans 
were left to cradle the assassinations of President John Fitzgerald 
Kennedy, Malcolm X, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the man we honor 
here today.

  Dr. Martin Luther King's dream helped us turn the corner on civil 
rights. Set in motion with Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 
enduring 381 days, ending only when the United States Supreme Court 
ruled that discrimination, on account of race in the field of 
interstate public transportation, was unconstitutional. The dream 
whisked forward into the hearts of those aggrieved in Alabama's Bible 
belt and the minds of Selma citizens organizing and peacefully marching 
for suffrage on March 7, 1965--a march that ended with violence at the 
hands of law enforcement officers, as demonstrators crossed the Edmund 
Pettus Bridge.
  Dr. King used nonviolent tactics to protest against Jim Crow laws in 
the South, organizing and leading demonstrations for desegregation, 
labor and voting rights. When the life of Dr. Martin Luther King was 
stolen from us, he was still a very young man, only 39 years old. 
People remember that Dr. King died in Memphis, but few 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 sanitation 
workers there had recently formed a chapter of the American Federation 
of State, County and Municipal Employees to demand better wages and 
working conditions for themselves.
  The city, however, refused to recognize the union and when the 1,300 
employees walked off of their jobs, the police broke up the rally with 
mace and police batons. Resultantly, union leaders summoned 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 deeply 
intertwined with the civil rights movement, for which he gave so many 
years of his life.
  Moments before his murder, Dr. King went out onto the balcony of the 
Lorraine Motel in Memphis and standing near his room, he was struck at 
6:01 p.m., by a single .30-06 bullet that James Earl Ray fired from a 
Remington Model 760 Gamemaster, completing the assassination. The 
killing sparked outcry and riots across the country, in addition to 
stimulating political support for passage of the Gun Control Act of 
1968.
  For some, Dr. King's assassination meant the end of the strategy of 
nonviolence. Others in the movement reaffirmed the need to carry on his 
work--as the nations' work--continuing the tradition of nonviolence. 
That night in Indianapolis, shortly after discovering that Dr. King had 
been murdered, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, campaigning to gain 
the presidential nomination to represent the Democratic Party, who 
himself would be murdered in Los Angles two months later, addressed an 
angry, heart-broken, shocked, and horrified audience in a predominantly 
black neighborhood of the city.
  The Chief of Police in Indianapolis advised Senator Kennedy that he 
could not provide protection and was worried he would be at risk in 
talking about the death of the revered leader. Robert Kennedy saw 
something more powerful though and, channeling Dr. King's spirit, 
decided to go ahead. Standing on a flatbed truck, he spoke 
acknowledging that many would be filled with anger as rumors of riots 
palpated in listeners' hearts. He said: ``For those of you who are 
black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the 
injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say 
that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a 
member of my family killed . . . killed by a white

[[Page E397]]

man.'' The Senator said that the country had to make an effort to, ``go 
beyond these rather difficult times,'' and needed and wanted unity 
between blacks and whites, and asked the audience members to pray for 
the King family and for the country.
  The death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will never 
overshadow his life. His legacy as a dreamer and a man of action stands 
strong. 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 
disparities of inequity. For without that vision--without that dream--
we can never continue to improve on our collective human condition.
  For those who have already forgotten, or whose vision is already 
clouded by the fog of complacency, I would like to recite the immortal 
words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

       ``I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia 
     the sons of former slaves and the sons of former shareholders 
     will be able to sit down together at the table of 
     brotherhood.
       I have a dream that one day, even the State of Mississippi, 
     a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering 
     with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis 
     of freedom and justice.
       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 for the content of their character.
       I have a dream today.
       I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its 
     vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping 
     with words of interposition and nullification--one day right 
     there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be 
     able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as 
     sisters and brothers.
       I have a dream today.
       I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, 
     every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places 
     will be made plain and the crooked places will be made 
     straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and 
     all flesh shall see it together.''

  Positioning the nation to accept a bold call to action to address the 
wrongs of slavery, ``separate, but equal,'' boycotts, assassinations, 
and Black power--he gave a much longed for voice to the history of 
uprising that drove global civil rights forward. Dr. King's dream did 
not stop at racial equality; his ultimate dream was one of human 
equality and dignity. He believed that freedom and justice were the 
birthrights of every individual in America. His dream became the dream 
of a people, documenting their collective challenges and struggle 
toward change; a hope to achieve a more perfect Union.
  The powerful words of his beloved widow Coretta Scott King remind us 
that, ``Freedom is never really won; you earn it and win it in every 
generation.'' Were he alive today, I believe that Dr. King would 
embolden us to acknowledge that this story and struggle, that started 
many centuries ago, continues today--with you. His, is an American 
story, and it is for us, the living, to continue that fight today and 
forever, following the great spirit that inspired the Rev. Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr.

                          ____________________