By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will always be remembered as a social activist and Baptist minister whose role was integral in the Civil Rights Movement.
Publicly and privately, King fought for equality, justice and human rights for African Americans and others who suffered from racism, segregation and other injustices.
His sermons, including the “Drum Major Instinct,” and his speeches like, “I Have a Dream,” are as important as they are legendary.
But, those closest to King recalled some of his more unheralded feats. They also recalled the importance of the Black Press during the movement.
“I would say King’s abiding commitment to focus on poverty and to deal with the wealth and equity gaps, and particularly the conditions of the poor, has been less heralded than his other accomplishments,” said Dr. Clarence Jones, a visiting professor at the University of San Francisco and a scholar and writer-in-residence at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Institute.
Jones met King in 1960 when he was 29 and King was 31.
Jones served on King’s legal team and help draft many of his most important speeches, including the 1963 “I Have a Dream” masterpiece.
But, it was a speech that King delivered just five days before his April 4, 1968 assassination that Jones remembers most.
“I’ve said so often that the sermon he gave at the National Cathedral in Washington was most important,” Jones said. “He captioned the speech, ‘Sleeping Through a Revolution,’ and that’s exactly what he’d say today, if he were here.”
Read more at http://www.blackpressusa.com/kings-fight-for-economic-justice-was-largely-ignored-by-mainstream-media/
