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50 Years Later

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Lewis

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50 Years Later

A lot of progress has been made but not nearly enough. People of color still struggle in this country in many ways.

[video=youtube;HRIF4_WzU1w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIF4_WzU1w[/video]
 
His last great speech the day before his death, he seems to know that his death was coming when he made this speech. You can tell by the comments he made in this speech. I remember the day of his death very well. And then Bobby Kennedy followed about a month to 2 months later.
[video=youtube;aL4FOvIf7G8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL4FOvIf7G8[/video]
 
50 Years Later

A lot of progress has been made but not nearly enough. People of color still struggle in this country in many ways.

[video=youtube;HRIF4_WzU1w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIF4_WzU1w[/video]

Lewis, can you tell me, or speak on, the progress that has been made, and more details of the things that are yet enough? I'm inviting a conversation on this as interest. I have great respect for Dr King, his cause, words and effect, but I want to know what you might feel is yet to achieve in regards to the rights of people and how that relates to the ground made in Kings time to now. Can you indulge that with me?
 
This is just some things Danus

The State of Black America: Progress Made, But Far To Go



It’s hard to imagine a more relevant moment for the National Urban League to release its State of Black America 2013 report. This year, after all, marks the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation — two historical events of enormous importance to African Americans. It seems even more appropriate that the Urban League’s report is released on the same day that President Obama — our first African-American president, recently re-elected to a second term — presents his annual budget to Congress.
Could there be a more appropriate moment to assess how far we’ve come, how far we’ve yet to go, and what kind of leadership is needed to move us forward?
The subtitle of the report, “50 Years of {Uneven} Progress,” acknowledges the undeniable progress since the 1963 March, and the remaining disparities that have worsened as a result of the financial crash, and the ensuing economic crisis and jobs deficit.
The impact of civil rights measures passed during the Civil Rights Movement, and the affirmative action programs policies that followed, is seen in the gains African Americans have made in education.

  • More African Americans complete high school. Only 15 percent of African-American adults today lack a high school education, compared with 75 percent of adults 50 years ago. This represents a 57 percent closure of the high school completion gap in 50 years.
  • More African-Americans attend college. There are now 3.5 times more African-Americans aged 18-24 enrolled in college than were 50 years ago.
  • More African-Americans hold college degrees. For every college graduate in 1963 there are now five.
Gains in education are tied to an increase in standards of living

  • Fewer African-Americans live in poverty. Since 1963, the number of African-Americans living in poverty has declined 23 percent.
  • Fewer African-American children live in poverty. The percentage of African-American children living in poverty has dropped 22 points in 50 years.
  • More African Americans are homeowners. Since 1963 the percentage of African-Americans who own their homes has increased 14 points.
Those numbers tell the story of how far we’ve come. Yet they don’t quite tell the story of where we are. First, they must be understood in the context of more data.

  • The unemployment gap persists. The unemployment gap has only closed 6 percent since 1963, and the unemployment rate for African-Americans remains twice that of whites — regardless of education, gender, region of the country, or income level.
  • The income gap persists. In 50 years, the income gap between African-Americans and whites has closed just 7 percent.
  • The wealth gap is growing. Net wealth for African-American families dropped 27.1 percent during the recession.
  • Disproportionate poverty persists. African-Americans make up 13.8 percent of the population, but account for 27 of Americans living in poverty.
As Isaiah J. Poole pointed out in his post, “The Sinking American Electorate: African Americans Still In Depression,” the story these numbers tell is an old familiar one for African-Americans: the more things change, the more they stay the same. If the rest of the country caught a cold during the recession, African-American communities caught pneumonia, and are far from recovering.
The persistence of disproportionate African-American unemployment is a capstone of the “heads-they-win-tails-we-lose” persistence of African Americans getting the worst when the economy declines and the least when the economy grows.
That pattern was repeated during the Great Recession. An essay on the black middle class in the National Urban League’s “State of Black America 2012″ report contains some of the stark details, concluding that “almost all of the economic gains of the last 30 years have been lost” since late 2007, and worse, “the ladders of opportunity for reaching the black middle class are disappearing.”
 
Thanks.

That's a similar take on a discussion I had this morning. I had mentioned to someone that I believe education is the key to economic advancement, regardless of race. I still believe that.

The conversation was about progress since the civil rights movement and the bill. The person I was speaking to had a more of a race spin/racism theme when discussing civil rights. My take is that people will always have a problem hating other people. You can't very well pass a law to control that, and it's not always easy to spot, but you can pass a law that allows equal treatment under the law, in terms of education, housing, loans, employment and such. That's a fair and just stance in terms of the law, for Gods sake.

One thing for sure, there is a divide economically. Black unemployment in the US is in the double digits. The question is why? The answer is more complicated than racism, or civil rights even though both may be factors.

In any case , I agree that progress still needs to be made. I still think it starts with education, but some of the attitudes I hear and see these days bother me deeply, from both whites and blacks. I don't think we are teaching our youth enough about the sacrifices made and how we are all part of that either negatively or positively.

I live in a very diverse area; a prosperous town in North Mississippi, just a few miles from Memphis TN. We've gone from about 90% white to 78%, and we where the fastest growing city in the US during the late 90's & 2000's. We are starting to see houses being built again. I've seen progress and change. I see a lot of MLKs dream right here, but I still see scars. I still think we'll get there.
 
The Bible Passages Behind Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Message

MLKJ.jpg
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a U.S. holiday dedicated to the memory of the massively influential civil rights activist. King is remembered primarily as a civil-rights figure who fought for social and political change, but he was also a pastor—and he considered his ideas about civil rights to be firmly rooted not just in common sense or political theory, but in Scripture itself.
I thought it would be interesting and appropriate today to look at some of King’s best-known sermons and identify the Bible passages upon which they are based.
One of King’s most creative sermons is a clever mirror of the apostle Paul’s letters to the early church in New Testament books like Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians. The sermon, “Paul’s Letter to American Christians,†imagines a fictional epistle written to 20th-century Americans. It begins in a familiar style:
I, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to you who are in America, Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ….
As in the New Testament epistles, King’s imagined letter from Paul contains both praise and criticism for its audience of believers. King imagines that Paul would critique not just America’s racial inequality, but the un-Christian greed and materialism that define so much of American life.
“Loving Your Enemies†is a 1957 King sermon based on one of the most famous passages from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:43-48:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
After discussing different Greek words for “love†used in the Bible, King reflects on Jesus’ command:
…it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.†Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemy.†This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.
It’s not hard to see the point King is making here, given the criticism and opposition the civil rights movement faced at the time.
King’s 1967 sermon “Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool†is an examination of a passage from Luke 12. Here’s how King paraphrases the story before beginning his analysis:
I want to share with you a dramatic little story from the gospel as recorded by Saint Luke. It is a story of a man who by all standards of measurement would be considered a highly successful man. And yet Jesus called him a fool. If you will read that parable, you will discover that the central character in the drama is a certain rich man. This man was so rich that his farm yielded tremendous crops. In fact, the crops were so great that he didn’t know what to do. It occurred to him that he had only one alternative and that was to build some new and bigger barns so he could store all of his crops. And then as he thought about this, he said, “Then I’m going to do something after I build my new and bigger barns.†He said, “I’m going to store my goods and my fruit there, and then I’m going to say to my soul, ‘Soul, thou hast much goods, laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’†That brother thought that was the end of life.
But the parable doesn’t end with that man making his statement. It ends by saying that God said to him, “Thou fool. Not next year, not next week, not tomorrow, but this night, thy soul is required of thee.â€
If you think of King only as a civil rights activist, you might be surprised at how much of his message of equality drew on Scripture, and at King’s concern for American moral challenges beyond racial discrimination. I encourage you today to look for yourself—open your Bible (or BibleGateway.com, of course!) and set it alongside a few of King’s sermons, checking out the Scriptures as you read. (Wikipedia’s list of notable King sermons is a good place to start; transcripts should be available online or at your local library.) Do King’s Scriptural analyses hold up to scrutiny? Could these sermons be preached at your own church today? How might King have preached about these same passages today if he were still alive?
If you’re interestd in more, see also Bible References in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream†Speech.
 
James Earl Ray

This in 2 posts



<table class="infobox vcard" style="border-spacing:3px;width:22em;" cellspacing="3"> <tbody><tr> <th colspan="2" class="fn" style="text-align:center;font-size:125%;font-weight:bold;">James Earl Ray</th> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" style="text-align:center;">
Mug shot of Ray taken in 1955
</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row" style="text-align:left;">Born</th> <td>March 10, 1928
Alton, Illinois, US</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row" style="text-align:left;">Died</th> <td>April 23, 1998 (aged 70)
Nashville, Tennessee</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row" style="text-align:left;">Conviction(s)</th> <td>Murder, prison escape,
armed robbery, burglary</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row" style="text-align:left;">Penalty</th> <td>99 years imprisonment (one year was added after his re-capture for a total of 100 years)</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row" style="text-align:left;">Conviction status</th> <td>deceased</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row" style="text-align:left;">Spouse</th> <td>Anna Sandhu (divorced)</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row" style="text-align:left;">Parents</th> <td>James Gerald Ray</td> </tr> </tbody></table> James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) was an American criminal convicted of the assassination of civil rights and anti-war activist Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ray was convicted on March 10, 1969, after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty.<sup id="cite_ref-Huie_1-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> He was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and tried unsuccessfully to gain a new trial. He died in prison of hepatitis C.
Early life

James Earl Ray came from a poor family in Alton, Illinois, and left school at age 15. He joined the US Army at the close of World War II and served in Germany.
Initial convictions and first escape from prison

He was convicted of his first crime, a burglary in California, in 1949. In 1952 he served two years for armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud after stealing money orders in Hannibal, Missouri, and then forging them to take a trip to Florida. He served three years at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. In 1959 he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a St. Louis Kroger store.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference">[2]</sup> Ray was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. He escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1967 by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery.<sup id="cite_ref-Gribben_3-0" class="reference">[3]</sup>
Activity in 1967

Following his escape, Ray stayed on the move, going first to St. Louis and then on to Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, and Birmingham. When he got to Alabama, Ray stayed long enough to buy a 1966 Ford Mustang and get an Alabama driver’s license. He then drove to Mexico, stopping in Acapulco before settling down in Puerto Vallarta on October 19, 1967.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">[4]</sup> While in Mexico, Ray, using the alias Eric Starvo Galt, attempted to establish himself as a porn director. Using mail-ordered equipment, he filmed and photographed local prostitutes. Frustrated with his results and jilted by the prostitute he had formed a relationship with, Ray left Mexico around November 16, 1967.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference">[5]</sup>
Ray arrived in Los Angeles on November 19. While in L.A., Ray attended a local bartending school and took dance lessons.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference">[6]</sup> His chief interest, however, was the George Wallace presidential campaign. Ray harbored a strong prejudice against African Americans and was quickly drawn to Wallace’s segregationist platform. He spent much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference">[7]</sup> He also developed an interest in Rhodesia, where Ian Smith’s white minority regime was in power. He wrote to the American-Southern Africa Council on December 28, 1967, stating, “My reason for writing is that I am considering immigrating to Rhodesia.”<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference">[8]</sup> The idea of living in Rhodesia stayed with Ray, and it would be his intended destination when he went on the run after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
Activity in early 1968

On March 5, 1968, Ray underwent a rhinoplasty, performed by Dr. Russell Hadley.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference">[9]</sup> On March 18, 1968, Ray left Los Angeles and began a cross-country drive to Atlanta, Georgia.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference">[10]</sup>
Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, Ray checked into a rooming house.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference">[11]</sup> He eventually bought a map of the city. FBI agents would later find this map when they searched the room in which he was staying in Atlanta. On the map, the locations of the church and residence of Martin Luther King Jr. were allegedly circled.<sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference">[12]</sup> However, according to Dr. William Pepper, "The Atlanta map is nowhere related to Dr. King’s residence. It is three oblong circles that covered general areas."<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference">[13]</sup>
Ray was soon on the road again, and drove his Mustang to Birmingham, Alabama. There, on March 30, 1968, he bought a Remington Gamemaster 760 .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 cartridges from the Aeromarine Supply Company. He also bought a Redfield 2x7 scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. He told the store clerks that he was going on a hunting trip with his brother. Ray had continued using the Galt alias after his stint in Mexico, but when he made this purchase, he gave his name as Harvey Lowmeyer.<sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference">[14]</sup>
After buying the rifle and accessories, Ray drove back to Atlanta. An avid newspaper reader, Ray passed his time reading the Atlanta Constitution. The paper reported King’s planned return trip to Memphis, Tennessee, which was scheduled for April 1, 1968. On April 2, 1968, Ray packed a bag and drove to Memphis.<sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference">[15]</sup>
.<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference">[22]</sup>
 
continued

Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.


Main article: Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

F.B.I. most wanted fugitive poster of James Earl Ray



The Lorraine Motel, now known as the National Civil Rights Museum, where King was assassinated


Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a sniper on April 4, 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Capture and trial

Ray fled north to Toronto, Ontario, where he hid out for a month and acquired a Canadian passport under the false name of Ramon George Sneyd.<sup id="cite_ref-16" class="reference">[16]</sup> On June 8, 1968, a little more than two months after King's death, Ray was captured at London's Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on the false Canadian passport. At check-in, the ticket agent noticed the name on his passport — Sneyd — was on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist.<sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference">[17]</sup> At the airport, officials noticed that Ray carried another passport under a second name. The UK quickly extradited Ray to Tennessee, where he was charged with King's murder. He confessed to the crime on March 10, 1969, and after pleading guilty was sentenced to 99 years in prison.<sup id="cite_ref-BBC_18-0" class="reference">[18]</sup>
Denial of confession

Three days later, he recanted his confession. Ray had entered a guilty plea on the advice of his attorney, Percy Foreman, in order to avoid a potential trial conviction, which could have led to a sentence of death. The method of execution in Tennessee at the time would have been electrocution.
Ray fired Foreman as his attorney and derisively called him "Percy Fourflusher," thereafter. Ray began claiming that a man he had met in Montreal, who used the alias "Raul", had been deeply involved. Instead he asserted that he did not "personally shoot Dr. King," but may have been, "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. Ray sold this version of King's assassination and his own flight to William Bradford Huie. Huie investigated this story and discovered Ray sometimes lied. Ray told Huie he purposefully left the rifle with his fingerprints on it in plain sight because he wanted to become a famous criminal. Ray was convinced he was so smart that he would not be caught.<sup id="cite_ref-Huie_1-1" class="reference">[1]</sup> He believed Governor of Alabama George Wallace would soon be elected President, and Ray would only be confined for a short time.<sup id="cite_ref-Huie_1-2" class="reference">[1]</sup> He spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a trial.
Second escape from prison

On June 11, 1977, Ray made his second appearance on the FBI Most Wanted Fugitives list, this time as the 351st entry. He and six other convicts had escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee, on June 10, 1977. They were recaptured on June 13, three days later, and returned to prison.<sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference">[19]</sup> A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, to total 100 years.
Conspiracy allegations

Ray had hired Jack Kershaw as his attorney, who promoted Ray's claim that he was not responsible for the shooting, which was said to have been the result of a conspiracy of the otherwise unidentified man named "Raul". Kershaw and his client met with representatives of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and convinced the committee to run ballistics tests — which ultimately proved inconclusive — that they felt would show that Ray had not fired the fatal shot.<sup id="cite_ref-Martin_20-0" class="reference">[20]</sup> Kershaw claimed that the escape was additional proof that Ray had been involved in a conspiracy that had provided him with the outside assistance he would have needed to break out of jail. Kershaw convinced Ray to take a polygraph test as part of an interview with Playboy. The magazine said that the test results showed "that Ray did, in fact, kill Martin Luther King Jr. and that he did so alone". Ray fired Kershaw after discovering that the attorney had been paid $11,000 by the magazine in exchange for the interview and hired conspiracy theorist Mark Lane to provide him with legal representation.<sup id="cite_ref-Martin_20-1" class="reference">[20]</sup>
Later developments

In 1997, King's son Dexter met with Ray, and publicly supported his efforts to obtain a retrial. Loyd Jowers, a restaurant owner in Memphis, was brought to civil court and sued as being part of a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King. Jowers was found legally liable, and the King family accepted $100 in restitution, an amount chosen to show that they were not pursuing the case for financial gain.
Dr. William Pepper, a friend of King in the last year of his life, represented Ray in a televised mock trial in an attempt to get him the trial he never had. Pepper later represented the King family in a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers. The King family has since concluded that Ray did not have anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference">[21]</sup>
Death

Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998, at the age of 70, from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C. Ray was survived by seven siblings. His brother Jerry Ray told CNN that his brother did not want to be buried or have his final resting place in the United States because of "the way the government has treated him." Ray was cremated and his ashes were flown to Ireland, the home of his family's ancestors
 
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