[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 59 (Thursday, April 4, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E403-E404]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE 51ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF THE REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER 
                               KING, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 4, 2019

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, today, April 4, 2019, marks the 51st 
anniversary of one of the darkest and most sorrowful days in American 
history, the assassination in Memphis, Tennessee of the Rev. Dr. Martin 
Luther King, Jr. Holiday.
  The mortal life of one of the towering figures of the 20th century 
may have been cut short on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel a half 
century ago, but the spirit that animated that life and inspired a 
nation lives on and reminds us that nothing is impossible when we are 
guided by the better angels of our nature.
  In remembering the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we commemorate 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 celebrate 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 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.''
  We should also remember that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
was, above all, a person who was always willing to speak truth to 
power.
  There is perhaps no better example of Dr. King's moral integrity and 
consistency than his criticism of the Vietnam War being 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.
  Martin's youth was spent in our country's Deep South, then run by Jim 
Crow and the Ku Klux Klan.
  For young African-Americans, it was an environment even more 
dangerous than the one they face today.
  A young Martin managed to find a dream, one that he pieced together 
from his readings--in the Bible, and literature, and just about any 
other book he could get his hands on.
  Not only did those books help him educate himself, but they also 
allowed him to work through the destructive and traumatic experiences 
of blatant discrimination, and the discriminatory abuse inflicted on 
himself, his family, and his people.
  As a youngster, Dr. King learned to use his imagination and his 
dreams to see right

[[Page E404]]

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.
  Dr. King was a dreamer and through dreams he was able to lift his 
mind beyond the reality of his segregated society to a beloved place 
where it was possible that white and black, red and brown, and all 
others live, work, and prosper together in harmony.
  But the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not an idle daydreamer.
  He shared his visions through speeches that motivated others to join 
in his nonviolent effort to lift themselves from poverty and isolation 
by creating a new America where equal justice and institutions were 
facts 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, and legally excluded from inclusion in that 
declaration.
  Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's ``I Have a Dream'' Speech, 
delivered 54 years ago, on August 28, 1963, was a clarion call to each 
citizen of this great nation that we still hear today.
  His request was simply and eloquently conveyed--he asked America to 
allow of 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.
  The 1960s were a time of great crisis and conflict.
  It was the decade of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and 
the assassinations of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Malcolm X, 
Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy, and the man we honor here today.
  The dream expressed and shared by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr. helped win major victories in the battle for civil rights.
  It started when Dr. King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, with Rosa 
Parks and others, which lasted for 381 days, and ended when the United 
States Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation on all public 
transportation.
  But the dream did not die there.
  It continued with a peaceful march for suffrage that started in 
Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965, a day that was immediately known and 
will always be remembered as ``Bloody Sunday,'' when a peaceful march 
for voting rights ended in bloodshed and violence at the hands of law 
enforcement officers as the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
  When the life of the Rev. 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, because without that vision--without that dream--we can never 
continue to improve the human condition.
  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood that a life well 
lived, and all of the noblest virtues--courage, wisdom, grace, love--
were rooted in service to others.
  And he memorably expressed this idea in his last sermon, the one 
given at Mason Temple in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the evening before 
he was felled by an assassin:

       But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the 
     question: ``If I do not stop to help this man, what will 
     happen to him?''
       That's the question before you tonight. Not, ``If I stop to 
     help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, 
     ``If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen 
     to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every 
     day and every week as a pastor?'' The question is not, ``If I 
     stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?'' The 
     question is, ``If I do not stop to help the sanitation 
     workers, what will happen to them?'' That's the question.
       Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us 
     stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in 
     these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America 
     what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a 
     better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for 
     allowing me to be here with you.

  So in these difficult days of challenge, let us remember and take 
inspiration from the remarkable, extraordinary, and consequential life 
of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and move forward together, with 
greater readiness and determination, to make America a place where all 
of her people enjoy the blessings of justice, equality, and human 
dignity.
  Let us, the living, continue that struggle today and forever, in the 
incandescent spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

                          ____________________