Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Would Have Been 70 This Year

By David Pitts
USIA Staff Writer

Had he lived, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 70 years old this year, a reminder of how young he was -- just 39 -- when he was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

On Monday, January 18, Americans once again will pay tribute to the civil rights leader on the national holiday named in honor of his birthday, the 14th such occasion since the King Holiday observance went into effect in 1986. His actual birthday is January 15.

In cities and towns, large and small, Americans will remember the man -- more than any other -- who tried to bring blacks and whites, and all other races, together to create what he often called the beloved community. This dream was not just for the people of the United States, but for all the world. As he said many times, and in many nations, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Even during his lifetime, King's leadership on civil rights was recognized around the world as well as in America. On December 10, 1964, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. At 35, he was the youngest recipient in history.

"I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice," King said before television cameras that relayed the event throughout Europe and the world.

He referred to himself as the "trustee" for a movement that provided nonviolent answers to a menace -- racial intolerance -- that so often results in violence. "I believe," he said, "that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.

"I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in mankind," King said. "I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life that surrounds him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daylight of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality," he added.

King made it clear that his message of racial justice was for all the world. But in the conclusion to his speech, he returned to the dilemma then faced by his fellow African Americans at home and his unswerving belief that America could be a better place. "When the years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live -- men and women will know, and children will be taught, that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization -- because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake," he said. The audience rose to its feet as the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra played selections from George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess."

Oslo is one of many cities where Dr. King will be remembered this weekend. In Atlanta, Georgia, where he was born and lived much of his life, there will be special observances at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, which his widow Coretta built in his memory.

In Memphis, the civil rights museum that opened in 1991 at the location of the Lorraine Motel where King was shot, is expecting more than the normal number of visitors, as always happens on his birthday, a museum official said.

The museum houses "the first comprehensive overview of the Civil Rights Movement in exhibit form," the spokesperson explained. "The 15 exhibits highlight the people, places and events that were central to the (Civil Rights) Movement" -- among them portrayals of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the student sit-ins and freedom rides of the early 1960s aimed at integrating public facilities and interstate transport.

Memphis is the city where Dr. King's journey came to its tragic end. But more than three decades later, his message lives on as powerfully as ever in our own time, a message especially recalled on his birthday. "It really boils down to this," he said, "that all life is inter-related. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."