It is hard not to think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in lofty terms. Standing as I was at the base of the statute, it is easy to see why we don’t think of him in human terms.
King entered Morehouse at age 15 in 1944. This totally blows my mind considering my high school counselor’s best advice for me was to apply to junior college in the sixties. I was in Seattle, Washington and Dr.King was in Atlanta, Georgia. He was supported in his dreams at a historic Black College while in the liberal Northwest, I was instructed to play small.
Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize at age 35 on Oct 14th in 1964. In writing a different essay about Dr. King, I wondered what else was happening in the world that would allow for his receipt of this award. Well the same year that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize, these 15 world shattering events were occurring. They were selected subjectively as milestones in my memory.
15 Little Known Facts about the year Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize
- Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty in January of 1964, Kenneth Kaunda became the president of Zambia
- Black & Puerto Rican students boycotted NYC public schools. This was a clear sign that “young people” were beginning to understand their power to change the world.
- Muhammad Ali formerly known as Cassius Clay knows Liston out. We were all in front of the televisions
- In March Malcolm X resigned from the Nation of Islam and the multiplicity of viewpoints about how black people might perceive themselves was changing.
- In April James Baldwin’s “Blues for Mr Charlie,” premiered in NYC.
- Africa as a continent was in the midst of its own changes as Tanganyika & Zanzibar formed the United Republic of Tanganyika & Zanzibar
- LBJ presented “Great Society.”
- Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in South Africa
- President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act & Voting Rights Act into law in July of this year
- Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman & James E Chaney’s bodies discovered in an earthen Mississippi dam in August and the US started bombing North Vietnam
- Race riots in Elizabeth, NJ, Paterson, NJ and Dixmoor (Chicago suburb) Ill
- President Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act on August 20th
- Free Speech Movement launched at University of California, Berkeley on October 1st
- J. Edgar Hoover described Martin Luther King as “most notorious liar” on November 18th
- Martin Luther King spoke to J. Edgar Hoover about his slander campaign on December 1st.
I thank Dr. King for opening the world and my mind to what was possible. I hope to help carry on his tradition in all that I do.
If you were alive (SMILE) in 1964, what do you remember about this year?
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