HAPPY BIRTHDAY......Happy Birthday to you-ah!

[FrenchieCat]

Celebrate the life of a great man!!





Words, Music and Image (Play now)---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNAy6Bhij8A&feature=related

THANK YOU FROM THE
BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS,
AND WE MISS YOU!

BORN JANUARY 15TH

[cbayer]

Proud to K & R

:toast:

[NYC_SKP]

1. I'm gonna have to kick and rec this thread for MLK...

:party:

:woohoo:

:party:

[madmax]

2. Happy Birthday Dr. King and Thank You...

[Arugula Latte]

3. A prime example

of how one person CAN make a huge difference. HUGE.

:thumbsup:

[Fire1]

And to think he was a devout and unwavering "Christian!" n/t

[FrenchieCat]

32. A real one at that!

[UrbScotty]

49. +1 to all three of you!!

FrenchieCat, Fire1, and Arugula Latte!

[Fire1]

4. K&R!

[malaise]

5. Fabulous thread

Happy Birthday MLK

[MerryBlooms]

6. Beautiful. Thank you. n/t

.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Don't you mean JANUARY 15?

[FrenchieCat]

8. Yes, I meant today! Thanks!

and fixed!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. K & R

:loveya:

[Fire1]

10. LBJ looks SO enthused!!! HA!!! LOL!! n/t

[WillyT]

11. Big Happy Birthday K & R !!!

:patriot:

:kick:

[Terra Alta]

12. K&R Happy birthday to a great man!

One can only imagine how much more he could have accomplished had his life not been cut so tragically short. :(

[tnlefty]

13. Thanks for this.

And on a TOTALLY shallow note, I always thought that he was a handsome man and that Coretta was a lovely woman. And yes, I mentioned shallow, and not to detract from the work that they did, I've always thought that they were beautiful people.:toast:

[FrenchieCat]

34. One can be profound and still have a bit of shallowness

for balance.....I always say! :)

[firedupdem]

14. Rec'd...Happy Birthday Dr. King! n/t

[provis99]

15. thanks Frenchie, for a ray of brightness in a bad-news day!

Happy MLK birthday!

[lunatica]

16. And here is a drawing I did of him

I love this man! I feel proud to share being an American with him. He has always been the most profound influence on me.

[FrenchieCat]

19. That is an awesome likeness!

Very Well Done! :thumbsup:

[bigwillq]

17. Happy Birthday, Dr. King.

:thumbsup: K and R

[lunatica]

18. The same drawing as above but much smaller

[Odin2005]

20. He would be 83 years old today, right?

:cry:

[FrenchieCat]

24. He was born on January 15, 1929

So is that 81?

[Odin2005]

26. Yep.

[EFerrari]

21. Another handsome man who couldn't take a bad picture.

I love the one of him and Malcolm smiling.

[struggle4progress]

22. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (4 April 1967)

... "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us ...

... I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem ...

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

[FrenchieCat]

28. Ah, yes......

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a president of the United States - at no time in his life did he hold public office. He was not a hero of foreign wars. He never had much money, and while he lived he was reviled at least as much as he was celebrated. By his own accounts, he was a man frequently racked with doubt, a man not without flaws, a man who, like Moses before him, more than once questioned why he had been chosen for so arduous a task - the task of leading a people to freedom, the task of healing the festering wounds of a nation's original sin.

And yet lead a nation he did. Through words he gave voice to the voiceless. Through deeds he gave courage to the faint of heart. By dint of vision, and determination, and most of all faith in the redeeming power of love, he endured the humiliation of arrest, the loneliness of a prison cell, the constant threats to his life, until he finally inspired a nation to transform itself, and begin to live up to the meaning of its creed.

Like Moses before him, he would never live to see the Promised Land. But from the mountain top, he pointed the way for us - a land no longer torn asunder with racial hatred and ethnic strife, a land that measured itself by how it treats the least of these, a land in which strength is defined not simply by the capacity to wage war but by the determination to forge peace - a land in which all of God's children might come together in a spirit of brotherhood.

We have not yet arrived at this longed for place. For all the progress we have made, there are times when the land of our dreams recedes from us - when we are lost, wandering spirits, content with our suspicions and our angers, our long-held grudges and petty disputes, our frantic diversions and tribal allegiances.

And yet, by erecting this monument, we are reminded that this different, better place beckons us, and that we will find it not across distant hills or within some hidden valley, but rather we will find it somewhere in our hearts.

In the Book of Micah, Chapter 6, verse 8, the prophet says that God has already told us what is good.

"What doth the Lord require of thee, the verse tells us, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

The man we honor today did what God required. In the end, that is what I will tell my daughters - I will leave it to their teachers and their history books to tell them the rest. As Dr. King asked to be remembered, I will tell them that this man gave his life serving others. I will tell them that this man tried to love somebody. I will tell them that because he did these things, they live today with the freedom God intended, their citizenship unquestioned, their dreams unbounded. And I will tell them that they too can love. That they too can serve. And that each generation is beckoned anew, to fight for what is right, and strive for what is just, and to find within itself the spirit, the sense of purpose, that can remake a nation and transform a world. Thank you very much.
- Barack Obama

[Kadie]

23. K&R!

:party:

[struggle4progress]

25. Speech in London in December 1964

... In our struggle for freedom and justice in the United States, which has also been so long and arduous, we feel a powerful sense of identification with those in the far more deadly struggle for freedom in South Africa. We know how Africans there, and their friends of other races, strove for half a century to win their freedom by non-violent methods. We have honoured Chief Lutuli for his leadership, and we know how this non-violence was only met by increasing violence from the state, increasing repression, culminating in the shootings of Sharpeville and all that has happened since.

Clearly there is much in Mississippi and Alabama to remind South Africans of their own country, yet even in Mississippi we can organise to register Negro voters, we can speak to the press, we can in short organise the people in non-violent action. But in South Africa even the mildest form of non-violent resistance meets with years of imprisonment, and leaders over many years have been restricted and silenced and imprisoned. We can understand how in that situation people felt so desperate that they turned to other methods, such as sabotage.

Today great leaders - Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe - are among many hundreds wasting away in Robben Island prison. Against the massively armed and ruthless state, which uses torture and sadistic forms of interrogation to crush human beings - even driving some to suicide - the militant opposition inside South Africa seems for the moment to be silenced: the mass of the people seems to be contained, seems for the moment unable to break from oppression. I emphasise the word "seems" because we can imagine what emotions and plans must be seething below the calm surface of that prosperous police state. We know what emotions are seething in the rest of Africa ...

Our responsibility presents us with a unique opportunity. We can join in the one form of non-violent action that could bring freedom and justice to South Africa - the action which African leaders have appealed for - in a massive movement for economic sanctions ...

http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/solidarity/mlking01.html

[struggle4progress]

27. ... A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus,

it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known. We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost 650 billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens - some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals - are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment. In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen from their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet liners speed over their ghettoes at 600 miles an hour; satellites streak through outer space and reveal details of the moon ...

There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it ...

Martin Luther King Jr.
The Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Nobel Lecture
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html

[FrenchieCat]

29. And his last sermon.......

I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Been_to_the_Mountaintop

[Parker CA]

30. What a great post, and what amazing photographs. Thanks for this. nt

[FrenchieCat]

31. It was my pleasure.....

Because remembering his birthday among the many News stories that are out there,
is important!

[annabanana]

33. HB to a walking embodiment of Courage!. . . . n/t

[DesertFlower]

35. happy birthday. nt

[midnight]

36. What a brave man..... Thankyou for all your work for the rights of all people...

"The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged."http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html

Let's dream of peace everwhere.

[The Wizard]

37. When he spoke

the only option was listening. One of a kind

[Hekate]

38. Made me smile all over, Frenchie. There's some great photos & I love the video...

:party: :patriot: :party:

Hekate

Oh yes, KnR

[TicketyBoo]

39. I was twelve years old

when I watched him give the "I have a dream" speech, live (on TV).

I wept. I was twelve years old, and I wept.

Maybe that's when I became a Democrat?

[Rhiannon12866]

40. Terrific thread! What wonderful pix! K&R...

:party: ;(

[Bluenorthwest]

41. A lovely thread. A story and a film recommendation in return

When I was 16, I met Stevie Wonder, and Stevie asked me if I would write to Congress to ask that Dr King's birthday be made a holiday. Stevie was the first adult to organize me into taking a political action. "You are too young to vote but not too young to write." So I think of Stevie this week, and his Mom. Both very kind people. It was so nice seeing him on the stage during the inaugural.
I'd also like to invite anyone who has interest in the work of Dr King to look for and watch a wonderful documentary about Bayard Rustin, who worked with King, brought the non violence techniques of Gandhi to the movement, and who was the key organizer of the DC march. This film is called 'Brother Outsider' and I recommend it highly to anyone who has interest in Dr King, in political organizing, in history, or in our continuing quest for harmony and understanding.

http://www.rustin.org

[Jackpine Radical]

42. Thank you Frenchie.

You have put together a beautiful tribute to a guy who was maybe the greatest American of the last century.

And happy birthday, Dr. King.

You are still here among us, as long as there are Americans, nay, as long as there are people in the world, who have a dream, and who work for freedom and justice for us all.

[bvar22]

43. Don't think I have ever recommended one of your posts....

..but THIS one I will gladly.

K&R

[FrenchieCat]

45. There's always a first time for everything,

and after all, there is a reason that we both on the same board.

[bvar22]

46. !

:toast:

[Botany]

44. abraham martin and john

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dHvYB5JdSs

[Mira]

47. Beautiful job and perfect sentiment.

Thanks, FrenchieCat K&R

[MadHound]

48. A man whose life was taken away too soon.

Happy Birthday Dr. King, we need and miss you.

[shireen]

50. a very nice collection of photos

Thank you!
:hug:

[Moosepoop]

51. Thank you, Frenchie!! K & R !! n/t

[LeftishBrit]

52. Big K&R

[MrMickeysMom]

53. Thank you for your contributions, Dr. King...

They are still a work in progress!