MLK
Why is there a Martin Luther King Day?
Here in the United States, Martin Luther King Jr is remembered with a national holiday to commemorate his birthday. Since Martin Luther King Jr is often referred to as MLK, this day is often referred to as MLK Day.
Having a national holiday to commemorate his birthday is a pretty big deal. Previously, there were only two other men so remembered - George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
However, to make room on the federal calendar for MLK Day, the birthdays of these two great US Presidents were combined into one holiday - President's Day. So now MLK stands alone in his birthday being a national holiday.
Here in America, MLK is remembered for bringing about the passage of the Bill of Rights of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968 through peaceful resistance.
The Origin of Peaceful Resistance
This peaceful resistance was a system of non-violent protests, marches, and boycotts. MLK learned this from studying the successful efforts of Mahatma Gandhi to bring about changes in the treatment of India by the British Empire.
Gandhi himself was inspired to bring the plight of the people of India directly to the people of Britain by Amy Carmichael.
This North Irish missionary to India caused the British Parliament to pass laws to end many brutal customs of India. Amy Carmichael did this by alerting the British public to them, when she wrote Things as They Are: Mission Work in Southern India in 1903.
Amy Carmichael was inspired to use this tactic by William Carey.
The British missionary William Carey had been forced to live in the Dutch colony of Serampore, because the British government had did not want him to disturb the trade of East India Company by upsetting the local people. So, he finally got the horrendous practice of Sati (burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband) outlawed by publishing books and articles read by the British public. After twenty-five years of effort, the practice was outlawed by the British in 1829.
So, in reality MLK was following a pattern of bring about social change through non-violent means that had been part of Christian practice since the time of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ). It was though non-violent means that the Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him) turned the Roman Empire upside down (Acts 17:6-8).
The Origin of the Civil Rights Movement
MLK was not the first to champion civil rights in America. Republicans were.
The Republican Party was founded to end slavery and give civil rights to African Americans in 1854.
The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, wanted give civil rights to African Americans after the Civil War was over. However, he was assassinated in 1865 before the Civil War ended. So, the Republicans in Congress worked to make this a reality without him, after the Civil War ended.
Republicans introduced and passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1875, 1957, and 1960. Every one of these bills passed with almost complete Republican support.
Republicans also voted for the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 in a much larger percentage than Democrats.
The 1866 Civil Rights Act created by Republicans only passed by overriding the veto of the Democrat President. Democrats were almost universally opposed to it. Many of the provisions of this first Civil Rights Act were soon incorporated into the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
The 1875 Civil Rights Acts created by Republicans passed over heavy Democrat opposition.
Later, a Supreme Court packed with members nominated by Democrats, ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. This denied civil rights to African Americans for almost a hundred years.
The provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were finally put back into law, when they were used as the backbone of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.
The 1957 Civil Rights Act was proposed by the Republican president Eisenhower (Ike). Democrats from southern states fought its passage with every tactic available to them. They did managed to get the protections that it offered African Americans weakened considerably from the one proposed by the president before being brought to a vote.
This was mostly due to the efforts of the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. It passed when finally brought to a vote with over ninety percent support from Republicans, and barely a majority of Democrats. Enforcement was largely ignored in southern states.
Next, the 1960 Civil Rights Act was proposed by Ike. It was meant to close of of the loopholes that had been inserted by Democrats into the 1957 Civil Rights Act to weaken it. Again, over eighty percent of Republicans voted for it, while only about sixty percent of Democrats voted for it.
When Democratic President John F. Kennedy (JFK) proposed a new Civil Rights Act that restored most of the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, he had almost unanimous Republican support. It sailed through the House of Representatives, but was stalled in the Senate by filibuster conducted by a group of southern Democrats.
It was only after President Kennedy was assassinated that things changed. The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), was able to secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with about eighty percent Republican support and sixty percent Democrat support.
Finally, the Fair Housing Act was introduced to congress in January of 1967. It too was blocked by most Democrats over concerns of the realtor estate lobby about what it would do to housing prices. (This lobby was one of the largest contributors to the Democratic party.)
It was modified with additional provisions to correct weakness found in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was renamed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It also put into place the rest of the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
It was only able to be brought a vote and passed, after MLK was assassinated and riots ensued. Like the previous civil rights acts, it passed with about eighty percent Republican support and sixty percent Democrat support.
So, in reality, MLK helped the Republicans give all Americans the Civil Rights in 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968 that the Republicans had previously given them ninety-three years earlier in the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
The real tragedy is that it took the assassination of many champions of freedom, including MLK, to get these two civil rights acts passed over the opposition of Democrats.
The Role of MLK and Ike in the Civil Rights Movement
This does not diminish the importance of what MLK did in any manner. The Republicans simply could not have done it without his relentless efforts to bring this issue to the attention of the American people.
MLK began his work as a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954. Soon, events would occur in this city, which would bring about the return of the Civil Rights Movement.
First, Claudette Clovin in March of 1955 refused to give up her seat on the bus to a European American. She was arrested. However, MLK was finishing up his doctorate at this time and was unable to give civil rights his full attention.
MLK received his doctorate in June of 1955. He was now able to give civil rights his full attention.
Like the Founding Fathers of America, MLK understood that a time for civil disobedience had arrived. He began the work of planning and organizing, but he had trouble getting enough people to commit enough to the cause to be effective. He needed something that would galvanize people into action.
That something was Rosa Parks. In December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a European American. She was also arrested, like Claudette Clovin before her. However, this time MLK was able to give civil rights his full attention.
The day after Rosa Parks was arrested, MLK started the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. During this boycott, violence against African Americans rose up across the South, including the home of MLK being bombed. This violence did not deter MLK or the boycott. This boycott lasted until the US District Court ruled against laws segregating bus seats towards the end of December in 1956.
This propelled MLK into the national spotlight. It also emboldened US Attorney General Hebert Brownell to draft legislation designed to make void all laws that served as barriers to African Americans voting. This Republican presented it to Ike to be sent to congress. This legislation became the Civil Rights Act of 1957. While the Civil Right Act of 1957 had been weakened considerably by Democrats from the original form, it was still a start and a victory for MLK.
MLK joined with other Christian leaders in the fight for civil rights to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This group was raised to prominence with the help of the world famous Christian evangelist Billy Graham, who MLK met at one of his crusades in New York City.
Later that year, MLK spoke for the first time to a national audience, when the SCLC led the Prayer Pilgrimage For Freedom in front of the Lincoln Memorial. MLK pleaded for stronger legislation than the Civil Right Act of 1957 to be passed, so that African Americans in the South would be able to vote without intimidation. MLK became a household name and the de facto voice of sixteen million African Americans in pleading their case for civil rights.
Then in 1958, MLK wrote a book called Stride Towards Freedom to expound upon his points made during the Prayer Pilgrimage For Freedom. While at a signing for this book in Harlem, he was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener by an African American woman, who thought that he was conspiring with Communists. He underwent surgery and was hospitalized for several weeks.
By 1959, MLK was back in the fight for civil rights. He wrote another book named The Measure of a Man. In this collection of his sermons, he made his case from the Book of Truth (The Bible). His sermons showed that all people needed the love of the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) and that there was no room for unequal treatment of people in a Christian nation like the United States.
Among the readers of this book was Ike. So, in that same year, Ike proposed new legislation that gave the Federal government more authority to ensure that African Americans were able to exercise their right to vote. This legislature became the Civil Rights Act of 1960 over the objections of southern Democrats.
The Role of MLK and JFK in the Civil Rights Movement
Next, MLK built upon the momentum created by the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 to move the American public to finally accept the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 with some additional improvements. While MLK would have liked a sooner passage, he understood that he had to work with others to accomplish this goal in pieces. He understood that real change usually comes step by step.
Top among those that he had to work with was the new president, JFK.
When JFK took office, he was not interested in expanding civil rights legislature. His plan was to enforce the existing laws. He was very concerned with getting his own legislative agenda, called "The New Frontier", through Congress. He did not want to upset southern Democrats. He could not get anything done without their consent.
In order to get their consent, JFK had selected LBJ as vice president. LBJ was a southern Democrat from Texas and was well respected by southern Democrats. After all, he had managed to get the Republican sponsored Civil Rights Act of 1957 weakened considerably.
However, JFK did use executive orders to enforce equal treatment for employment upon government contractors in 1961. This kind of enforcement of existing law was as far as JFK was willing to go at that time.
In November of 1961, the SCLC helped organize a non-violent protest in Albany, Georgia. MLK went there in December to give advice and was arrested. He was bailed out of jail anonymously by Billy Graham, so he could continue his fight for civil rights.
In 1962, MLK called on JFK to issue an executive order similar to the Emancipation Proclamation that had been issued by Republican president Abraham Lincoln. JFK declined, because he did not want damage his chances of getting his own legislative agenda through Congress.
By 1963, the SCLC determined that JFK was only going to take action if he was forced to do so to deal with a crisis.
So, the Birmingham Campaign organized by MLK in April of 1963. This led to nationally televised violence against African Americans, including children and old women, by law enforcement officers. The nation was outraged, but still JFK refused to send in federal troops to put an end to this unjust treatment. He was still concerned about upsetting southern Democrats in Congress.
When the home of MLK was bombed for a second time in May of 1963, JFK finally told the American public that he would see what he could do under existing law to stop the violence in Birmingham.
However, his likely Republican rival in the upcoming presidential election raised money to get MLK released from jail. The Republicans were making an issue of the need for a new Civil Rights Act like the one that they had passed in 1875.
Finally, in June of 1963, JFK announced his own civil rights legislation in a speech to the American people over radio and television. His legislature would move the nation closer to accepting the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that had been passed by Republicans.
The next day, southern Democrats in Congress killed a key piece of the legislature proposed by JFK. The New Frontier program was dead.
However, JFK realized that MLK and the Republicans had made a new Civil Rights Act necessary, if he was going to be elected to a second term and the Democrats were going to retain control of Congress. JFK found himself needing MLK as much as he needed southern Democrats in Congress.
Next, MLK announced a march on Washington. JFK reached out MLK and requested some changes in the focus of the march, so his civil rights legislation could pass.
In exchange, JFK arranged for funding for the organizers, enlisted additional people, including members of labor unions, to attend the march to ensure that over 100,000 people showed up, and provided protection for the marchers to prevent violence from occurring. JFK and MLK personally edited all speeches to insure that any language that would provoke violence was removed. A peaceful demonstration was essential to success in getting his civil rights legislature taken up by congress.
After the success of the March on Washington in August of 1963, MLK met with JFK for photos to show them working together to bring about his civil rights legislation.
This helped put pressure to bring his civil rights legislation to a vote, but Southern Democrats continued to do everything they could to prevent it from ever being voted on. JFK was able to get enough Democrats to join Republican support to prevent a filibuster by September of 1963.
When JFK was assassinated in November of 1963, LBJ made a passionate plea to Congress to pass the JFK civil rights legislation as a fitting memorial for JFK.
LBJ managed to get the JFK civil rights legislation brought a vote in the House of Representatives in the beginning of 1964. It was approved and passed on to the Senate.
However, Southern Democrats in the Senate proceeded to filibuster the JFK civil rights legislation.
So, MLK kept up the pressure to get the JFK civil rights legislation passed. He convince the SCLC to join in the effort of another organization in Saint Augustine, Florida in March of 1964. He convinced hundreds of European Americans to join him. They were all arrested.
In June of 1964, MLK led protest marches through the streets of Saint Augustine, that were met with violent opposition from the Klu Klux Klan. Hundreds of the marchers were arrested.
The violence and unjust arrests got the attention of the American people. They were demanding passage of the JFK civil rights legislation. It was apparent to every politician that the tide had turned.
Finally, after a small change in one provision, LBJ was able to convince enough Southern Democrats in the Senate to join in a vote to end the filibuster. He did this by confronting them about their claims to be Christians on the one hand, and not treating African Americans as they would want to be treated as commanded by the Man of Truth on the other hand.
The House approved the amended version of the JFK civil rights legislation. LBJ signed it into law in July of 1964 as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
During this process, Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential candidate, flipped on his previous support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
(Goldwater had championed civil rights and worked for passage of every civil rights act since 1952, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, before he flipped his position. In fact, his very first act when he arrived in the US Senate building in 1952 was to desegregate the Senate lunch room.)
Goldwater betrayed the Republican efforts to restore the liberties given by the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This Judas did not do this for thirty pieces of silver, but in a bid to win support from the southern states in his bid for president. Instead, he ended up only winning the five states of the Deep South, which had the most discriminatory laws.
So, the goal of JFK was realized in the elections of November of 1964, when LBJ was elected as president and the Democrats retained control of Congress.
The Role of MLK and LBJ in the Civil Rights Movement
While the 1964 Civil Rights Act had provided penalties for preventing anyone from voting, it still had not been enforced in the Deep South. Many African Americans had still been denied their right to vote in the 1964 elections. The worst of this oppression was in Selma, Alabama.
In January of 1965, MLK went to Selma to organize a march to the state capital building in Montgomery to protest this oppression. He then left to raise funds.
In February of 1965, MLK went to Selma to be arrested for defying the laws against civil rights speech in Selma. His arrest brought publicity to the oppression in Selma.
In March of 1965, MLK met with LBJ to get an injunction against arresting the protesters when they marched. He wanted to be sure everything was in place for a successful march first.
However, while MLK was attending to his duties at church on Sunday, the protesters proceeded to march without him.
When the county Sheriff, Clark, met the protesters with a posse of 200 deputies, many of who were members of the KKK and similar groups, he told the protesters to go home. They refused and the posse started attacking the protesters with night sticks, tear gas, and whips. This enraged the American public when they saw the footage of "Bloody Sunday" on television.
LBJ immediately gave a televised speech deploying the violence and a promise to soon put forth new legislation to grant the federal government power to ensure that all Americans could be registered to vote.
Before LBJ could draft this new voter protection legislation, the protesters in Selma prepared for a second march two days later. LBJ sent Collins to ask MLK to prevent them from doing so on his behalf. LBJ needed more time to ensure protection of the protesters.
Collins made a deal with Clark that the protesters would not be attacked, if they turned around once they came to Edmund Pettus Bridge. MLK took the deal since a march to Montgomery was doomed to failure at that time.
So, the protesters marched from the church to the bridge, then MLK halted them on the bridge, gave a sermon, and they turned around to march back to the church. This televised event became known as "Turnaround Tuesday".
Six days later, LBJ presented his voter protection legislature to Congress.
Two days later, a federal judge made an injunction ensuring that the protesters would not be arrested for peaceful protest, after he received confirmation from LBJ that he would enforce the injunction.
So, four days later, on March 21, MLK led the march of 8,000 protesters, many of them European Americans, from Selma. When the protesters arrived at the capital building in Montgomery four days later, they had grown to 25,000 protesters. MLK then delivered a speech from steps of the capital building declaring that it would not be long until the end of the kind of oppression that existed in Selma.
The march from Selma to Montgomery was a success. There had been no violence against the protesters thanks to the injunction. Soon, there were other mass registrations of African Americans across the South.
In August of 1965, LBJ signed his voter protection legislation into law as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
So, now a large part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 created by Republicans was once again the law of the land. However, LBJ wanted to ensure that Democrats remained in control of Congress.
Before Ike had signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, only twenty percent of eligible African Americans voters in the South were actually able to vote. Now, with one hundred percent of eligible African American voters in the South being able to vote, there was a new political reality.
If these southern African Americans decided to vote largely for Republicans, as they had after the Civil War, then southern Democrats would be replaced with Republicans. If this happened, then Democrats would no longer remain in control of Congress.
LBJ realized that the Democrats needed to restore the rest of the civil rights that had been granted by Republicans in 1875 - without giving the Republicans credit - if they were to retain control of Congress. The main obstacle to achieving this was southern Democrats.
He needed a new cause to champion to accomplish this. MLK was about to give him one.
Now that African Americans were able to register and vote in the South without intimidation, MLK turned his attention to acts of discrimination in the North.
So, in 1966, MLK went to Chicago to see for himself if the reports that he had heard about racial discrimination in housing were true. He soon found that things were worse than he had heard.
MLK conducted an experiment where he sent European American and African American couples, who were the same in income, etc, to various real estate offices. The real estate offices invariably sent the European Americans to newer housing in neighborhoods with lower crime rates and better schools, while invariably the African American couples were sent to older housing in neighborhoods with higher crime rates and substandard schools.
So, MLK began a series of peaceful protests and marches to end this housing discrimination in Chicago. However, he soon found the Chicago Open Housing Movement was facing harsher attacks than any that he had experienced in the South. He was personally assaulted numerous times while the Chicago police refused to intervene.
MLK realized that the only way to end this discrimination was federal legislation. However, both Southern and Northern Democrats were against this as well as the National Association of Real Estate Boards, one of their largest contributors. This issue alone destroyed all efforts in 1966 to fill in the remaining gaps between current law and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
However, the Fair Housing Act was introduced in January of 1967 to address this discrimination in housing. It met fierce opposition in the House of Representative by Democrats, but almost none from Republicans. It looked like another lost cause.
So, MLK largely gave up on this effort in 1967, and turned his attention to opposing the Vietnam War. This was a costly mistake. It diverted his attention from finishing the fight for civil rights. It also caused friction with his allies in the fight for Civil Rights, including Billy Graham and LBJ.
However, the efforts of MLK to get fair housing in Chicago the previous year had set off an expected series of events. Soon, there were riots over fair housing across large cities during the summer of 1967.
So the Fair Housing Act was amended to have all of the remaining gaps between current law and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 filled. It was also expanded to include more legislation to protect peaceful protesters as well as the rights of other groups like Native Americans.
The House of Representative then passed this greatly expanded Fair Housing Act and sent it to the Senate in August of 1967.
The southern Democrats in the Senate immediately filibustered the Fair Housing Act.
However, MLK was encouraged and returned his attention to civil rights again in 1968. He organized the Poor People's Campaign to address matters of economic justice.
This effort was largely unsuccessful because the goals were too vague and too broad.
However, in March of 1968, the Senate Republican leader, Everitt Dirksen, was able to defeat the southern Democrat filibuster by a very slim margin, when he made a minor adjustment to one of the provisions.
Then on April 4th of 1968, the day that the amended Fair Housing Act was to go to a vote in the Senate, MLK was assassinated. Civil unrest sprang up across the country.
The next day, LBJ urged the House of Representatives to pass the Fair Housing Act.
Five days later the House of Representatives passed the Fair Housing Act and renamed it the Civil Rights Act of 1968. LBJ signed it into law the next day.
So, thanks to the efforts of MLK, the protections given by Republicans in the Civil Rights Act of 1875 finally became a reality ninety-three years later.
However, LBJ was successful in his efforts to do this without the Republicans getting credit.
The voting public saw a Democrat president sign a law that was sent to him by a Democrat controlled Congress. They seemed to have forgotten that almost all of the opposition to civil rights was also from Democrats. LBJ had managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the sheeple.
The Legacy of MLK
So, Americans celebrate MLK Day because of the civil rights that MLK made possible.
During his thirteen year struggle, MLK had been arrested twenty-nine times, had his home bombed twice, was stabbed once, assaulted numerous times, and finally killed for his stand for civil rights.
MLK overcame all opposition because he had heroic resolve. He secured civil rights for all Americans when he gave the last full measure of devotion.
MLK could see that in reality we are all just one of six shades of brown. He understood that even the concept of that there is such a thing as an interracial marriage is wrong.
MLK was right. There is only one race - the human race. The Father of Truth has made all people from the same source (Acts 17:24-26).
MLK was following the call of the Father of Truth on his life to end the unjust treatment of people, so he experienced persecution as promised in the Book of Truth (2 Timothy 3:12).
MLK was an imitator of the Man of Truth in this regard.
The Man of Truth laid down his life for the sake of people of every race (John 10:14-16). He has laid down his life to deliver the human race from oppression (Hebrews 2:9-15).
However, the Man of Truth laid his life down voluntarily, so he could take it back up again (John 10:17-18).
Since the Father of Truth raised him from the dead, the Man of Truth will one day ensure that all people are treated according to the contents of their hearts (Acts 17:30-31).
The problem is that nothing MLK did can solve all discrimination problems, because the human heart is full of corruption (Jeremiah 17:9). People cannot end the discrimination with an unchanged heart (Romans 8:7).
People must come into the House of Truth and have their heart changed to truly end discrimination (John 3:6-8). As MLK preached, all men are sinners before the Father of Truth, and need to come into the House of Truth (Romans 3:22-26).
So, like MLK, make the Man of Truth your king, because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). The right to come into the House of Truth is a universal right given by the Father of Truth (Romans 10:10-13).
Come into the House of Truth!
Here in the United States, Martin Luther King Jr is remembered with a national holiday to commemorate his birthday. Since Martin Luther King Jr is often referred to as MLK, this day is often referred to as MLK Day.
Having a national holiday to commemorate his birthday is a pretty big deal. Previously, there were only two other men so remembered - George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
However, to make room on the federal calendar for MLK Day, the birthdays of these two great US Presidents were combined into one holiday - President's Day. So now MLK stands alone in his birthday being a national holiday.
Here in America, MLK is remembered for bringing about the passage of the Bill of Rights of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968 through peaceful resistance.
The Origin of Peaceful Resistance
This peaceful resistance was a system of non-violent protests, marches, and boycotts. MLK learned this from studying the successful efforts of Mahatma Gandhi to bring about changes in the treatment of India by the British Empire.
Gandhi himself was inspired to bring the plight of the people of India directly to the people of Britain by Amy Carmichael.
This North Irish missionary to India caused the British Parliament to pass laws to end many brutal customs of India. Amy Carmichael did this by alerting the British public to them, when she wrote Things as They Are: Mission Work in Southern India in 1903.
Amy Carmichael was inspired to use this tactic by William Carey.
The British missionary William Carey had been forced to live in the Dutch colony of Serampore, because the British government had did not want him to disturb the trade of East India Company by upsetting the local people. So, he finally got the horrendous practice of Sati (burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband) outlawed by publishing books and articles read by the British public. After twenty-five years of effort, the practice was outlawed by the British in 1829.
So, in reality MLK was following a pattern of bring about social change through non-violent means that had been part of Christian practice since the time of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ). It was though non-violent means that the Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him) turned the Roman Empire upside down (Acts 17:6-8).
The Origin of the Civil Rights Movement
MLK was not the first to champion civil rights in America. Republicans were.
The Republican Party was founded to end slavery and give civil rights to African Americans in 1854.
The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, wanted give civil rights to African Americans after the Civil War was over. However, he was assassinated in 1865 before the Civil War ended. So, the Republicans in Congress worked to make this a reality without him, after the Civil War ended.
Republicans introduced and passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1875, 1957, and 1960. Every one of these bills passed with almost complete Republican support.
Republicans also voted for the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 in a much larger percentage than Democrats.
The 1866 Civil Rights Act created by Republicans only passed by overriding the veto of the Democrat President. Democrats were almost universally opposed to it. Many of the provisions of this first Civil Rights Act were soon incorporated into the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
The 1875 Civil Rights Acts created by Republicans passed over heavy Democrat opposition.
Later, a Supreme Court packed with members nominated by Democrats, ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. This denied civil rights to African Americans for almost a hundred years.
The provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were finally put back into law, when they were used as the backbone of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.
The 1957 Civil Rights Act was proposed by the Republican president Eisenhower (Ike). Democrats from southern states fought its passage with every tactic available to them. They did managed to get the protections that it offered African Americans weakened considerably from the one proposed by the president before being brought to a vote.
This was mostly due to the efforts of the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. It passed when finally brought to a vote with over ninety percent support from Republicans, and barely a majority of Democrats. Enforcement was largely ignored in southern states.
Next, the 1960 Civil Rights Act was proposed by Ike. It was meant to close of of the loopholes that had been inserted by Democrats into the 1957 Civil Rights Act to weaken it. Again, over eighty percent of Republicans voted for it, while only about sixty percent of Democrats voted for it.
When Democratic President John F. Kennedy (JFK) proposed a new Civil Rights Act that restored most of the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, he had almost unanimous Republican support. It sailed through the House of Representatives, but was stalled in the Senate by filibuster conducted by a group of southern Democrats.
It was only after President Kennedy was assassinated that things changed. The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ), was able to secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with about eighty percent Republican support and sixty percent Democrat support.
Finally, the Fair Housing Act was introduced to congress in January of 1967. It too was blocked by most Democrats over concerns of the realtor estate lobby about what it would do to housing prices. (This lobby was one of the largest contributors to the Democratic party.)
It was modified with additional provisions to correct weakness found in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was renamed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. It also put into place the rest of the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
It was only able to be brought a vote and passed, after MLK was assassinated and riots ensued. Like the previous civil rights acts, it passed with about eighty percent Republican support and sixty percent Democrat support.
So, in reality, MLK helped the Republicans give all Americans the Civil Rights in 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968 that the Republicans had previously given them ninety-three years earlier in the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
The real tragedy is that it took the assassination of many champions of freedom, including MLK, to get these two civil rights acts passed over the opposition of Democrats.
The Role of MLK and Ike in the Civil Rights Movement
This does not diminish the importance of what MLK did in any manner. The Republicans simply could not have done it without his relentless efforts to bring this issue to the attention of the American people.
MLK began his work as a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954. Soon, events would occur in this city, which would bring about the return of the Civil Rights Movement.
First, Claudette Clovin in March of 1955 refused to give up her seat on the bus to a European American. She was arrested. However, MLK was finishing up his doctorate at this time and was unable to give civil rights his full attention.
MLK received his doctorate in June of 1955. He was now able to give civil rights his full attention.
Like the Founding Fathers of America, MLK understood that a time for civil disobedience had arrived. He began the work of planning and organizing, but he had trouble getting enough people to commit enough to the cause to be effective. He needed something that would galvanize people into action.
That something was Rosa Parks. In December of 1955, she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a European American. She was also arrested, like Claudette Clovin before her. However, this time MLK was able to give civil rights his full attention.
The day after Rosa Parks was arrested, MLK started the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. During this boycott, violence against African Americans rose up across the South, including the home of MLK being bombed. This violence did not deter MLK or the boycott. This boycott lasted until the US District Court ruled against laws segregating bus seats towards the end of December in 1956.
This propelled MLK into the national spotlight. It also emboldened US Attorney General Hebert Brownell to draft legislation designed to make void all laws that served as barriers to African Americans voting. This Republican presented it to Ike to be sent to congress. This legislation became the Civil Rights Act of 1957. While the Civil Right Act of 1957 had been weakened considerably by Democrats from the original form, it was still a start and a victory for MLK.
MLK joined with other Christian leaders in the fight for civil rights to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This group was raised to prominence with the help of the world famous Christian evangelist Billy Graham, who MLK met at one of his crusades in New York City.
Later that year, MLK spoke for the first time to a national audience, when the SCLC led the Prayer Pilgrimage For Freedom in front of the Lincoln Memorial. MLK pleaded for stronger legislation than the Civil Right Act of 1957 to be passed, so that African Americans in the South would be able to vote without intimidation. MLK became a household name and the de facto voice of sixteen million African Americans in pleading their case for civil rights.
Then in 1958, MLK wrote a book called Stride Towards Freedom to expound upon his points made during the Prayer Pilgrimage For Freedom. While at a signing for this book in Harlem, he was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener by an African American woman, who thought that he was conspiring with Communists. He underwent surgery and was hospitalized for several weeks.
By 1959, MLK was back in the fight for civil rights. He wrote another book named The Measure of a Man. In this collection of his sermons, he made his case from the Book of Truth (The Bible). His sermons showed that all people needed the love of the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) and that there was no room for unequal treatment of people in a Christian nation like the United States.
Among the readers of this book was Ike. So, in that same year, Ike proposed new legislation that gave the Federal government more authority to ensure that African Americans were able to exercise their right to vote. This legislature became the Civil Rights Act of 1960 over the objections of southern Democrats.
The Role of MLK and JFK in the Civil Rights Movement
Next, MLK built upon the momentum created by the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 to move the American public to finally accept the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 with some additional improvements. While MLK would have liked a sooner passage, he understood that he had to work with others to accomplish this goal in pieces. He understood that real change usually comes step by step.
Top among those that he had to work with was the new president, JFK.
When JFK took office, he was not interested in expanding civil rights legislature. His plan was to enforce the existing laws. He was very concerned with getting his own legislative agenda, called "The New Frontier", through Congress. He did not want to upset southern Democrats. He could not get anything done without their consent.
In order to get their consent, JFK had selected LBJ as vice president. LBJ was a southern Democrat from Texas and was well respected by southern Democrats. After all, he had managed to get the Republican sponsored Civil Rights Act of 1957 weakened considerably.
However, JFK did use executive orders to enforce equal treatment for employment upon government contractors in 1961. This kind of enforcement of existing law was as far as JFK was willing to go at that time.
In November of 1961, the SCLC helped organize a non-violent protest in Albany, Georgia. MLK went there in December to give advice and was arrested. He was bailed out of jail anonymously by Billy Graham, so he could continue his fight for civil rights.
In 1962, MLK called on JFK to issue an executive order similar to the Emancipation Proclamation that had been issued by Republican president Abraham Lincoln. JFK declined, because he did not want damage his chances of getting his own legislative agenda through Congress.
By 1963, the SCLC determined that JFK was only going to take action if he was forced to do so to deal with a crisis.
So, the Birmingham Campaign organized by MLK in April of 1963. This led to nationally televised violence against African Americans, including children and old women, by law enforcement officers. The nation was outraged, but still JFK refused to send in federal troops to put an end to this unjust treatment. He was still concerned about upsetting southern Democrats in Congress.
When the home of MLK was bombed for a second time in May of 1963, JFK finally told the American public that he would see what he could do under existing law to stop the violence in Birmingham.
However, his likely Republican rival in the upcoming presidential election raised money to get MLK released from jail. The Republicans were making an issue of the need for a new Civil Rights Act like the one that they had passed in 1875.
Finally, in June of 1963, JFK announced his own civil rights legislation in a speech to the American people over radio and television. His legislature would move the nation closer to accepting the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that had been passed by Republicans.
The next day, southern Democrats in Congress killed a key piece of the legislature proposed by JFK. The New Frontier program was dead.
However, JFK realized that MLK and the Republicans had made a new Civil Rights Act necessary, if he was going to be elected to a second term and the Democrats were going to retain control of Congress. JFK found himself needing MLK as much as he needed southern Democrats in Congress.
Next, MLK announced a march on Washington. JFK reached out MLK and requested some changes in the focus of the march, so his civil rights legislation could pass.
In exchange, JFK arranged for funding for the organizers, enlisted additional people, including members of labor unions, to attend the march to ensure that over 100,000 people showed up, and provided protection for the marchers to prevent violence from occurring. JFK and MLK personally edited all speeches to insure that any language that would provoke violence was removed. A peaceful demonstration was essential to success in getting his civil rights legislature taken up by congress.
After the success of the March on Washington in August of 1963, MLK met with JFK for photos to show them working together to bring about his civil rights legislation.
This helped put pressure to bring his civil rights legislation to a vote, but Southern Democrats continued to do everything they could to prevent it from ever being voted on. JFK was able to get enough Democrats to join Republican support to prevent a filibuster by September of 1963.
When JFK was assassinated in November of 1963, LBJ made a passionate plea to Congress to pass the JFK civil rights legislation as a fitting memorial for JFK.
LBJ managed to get the JFK civil rights legislation brought a vote in the House of Representatives in the beginning of 1964. It was approved and passed on to the Senate.
However, Southern Democrats in the Senate proceeded to filibuster the JFK civil rights legislation.
So, MLK kept up the pressure to get the JFK civil rights legislation passed. He convince the SCLC to join in the effort of another organization in Saint Augustine, Florida in March of 1964. He convinced hundreds of European Americans to join him. They were all arrested.
In June of 1964, MLK led protest marches through the streets of Saint Augustine, that were met with violent opposition from the Klu Klux Klan. Hundreds of the marchers were arrested.
The violence and unjust arrests got the attention of the American people. They were demanding passage of the JFK civil rights legislation. It was apparent to every politician that the tide had turned.
Finally, after a small change in one provision, LBJ was able to convince enough Southern Democrats in the Senate to join in a vote to end the filibuster. He did this by confronting them about their claims to be Christians on the one hand, and not treating African Americans as they would want to be treated as commanded by the Man of Truth on the other hand.
The House approved the amended version of the JFK civil rights legislation. LBJ signed it into law in July of 1964 as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
During this process, Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential candidate, flipped on his previous support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
(Goldwater had championed civil rights and worked for passage of every civil rights act since 1952, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, before he flipped his position. In fact, his very first act when he arrived in the US Senate building in 1952 was to desegregate the Senate lunch room.)
Goldwater betrayed the Republican efforts to restore the liberties given by the Civil Rights Act of 1875. This Judas did not do this for thirty pieces of silver, but in a bid to win support from the southern states in his bid for president. Instead, he ended up only winning the five states of the Deep South, which had the most discriminatory laws.
So, the goal of JFK was realized in the elections of November of 1964, when LBJ was elected as president and the Democrats retained control of Congress.
The Role of MLK and LBJ in the Civil Rights Movement
While the 1964 Civil Rights Act had provided penalties for preventing anyone from voting, it still had not been enforced in the Deep South. Many African Americans had still been denied their right to vote in the 1964 elections. The worst of this oppression was in Selma, Alabama.
In January of 1965, MLK went to Selma to organize a march to the state capital building in Montgomery to protest this oppression. He then left to raise funds.
In February of 1965, MLK went to Selma to be arrested for defying the laws against civil rights speech in Selma. His arrest brought publicity to the oppression in Selma.
In March of 1965, MLK met with LBJ to get an injunction against arresting the protesters when they marched. He wanted to be sure everything was in place for a successful march first.
However, while MLK was attending to his duties at church on Sunday, the protesters proceeded to march without him.
When the county Sheriff, Clark, met the protesters with a posse of 200 deputies, many of who were members of the KKK and similar groups, he told the protesters to go home. They refused and the posse started attacking the protesters with night sticks, tear gas, and whips. This enraged the American public when they saw the footage of "Bloody Sunday" on television.
LBJ immediately gave a televised speech deploying the violence and a promise to soon put forth new legislation to grant the federal government power to ensure that all Americans could be registered to vote.
Before LBJ could draft this new voter protection legislation, the protesters in Selma prepared for a second march two days later. LBJ sent Collins to ask MLK to prevent them from doing so on his behalf. LBJ needed more time to ensure protection of the protesters.
Collins made a deal with Clark that the protesters would not be attacked, if they turned around once they came to Edmund Pettus Bridge. MLK took the deal since a march to Montgomery was doomed to failure at that time.
So, the protesters marched from the church to the bridge, then MLK halted them on the bridge, gave a sermon, and they turned around to march back to the church. This televised event became known as "Turnaround Tuesday".
Six days later, LBJ presented his voter protection legislature to Congress.
Two days later, a federal judge made an injunction ensuring that the protesters would not be arrested for peaceful protest, after he received confirmation from LBJ that he would enforce the injunction.
So, four days later, on March 21, MLK led the march of 8,000 protesters, many of them European Americans, from Selma. When the protesters arrived at the capital building in Montgomery four days later, they had grown to 25,000 protesters. MLK then delivered a speech from steps of the capital building declaring that it would not be long until the end of the kind of oppression that existed in Selma.
The march from Selma to Montgomery was a success. There had been no violence against the protesters thanks to the injunction. Soon, there were other mass registrations of African Americans across the South.
In August of 1965, LBJ signed his voter protection legislation into law as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
So, now a large part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 created by Republicans was once again the law of the land. However, LBJ wanted to ensure that Democrats remained in control of Congress.
Before Ike had signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, only twenty percent of eligible African Americans voters in the South were actually able to vote. Now, with one hundred percent of eligible African American voters in the South being able to vote, there was a new political reality.
If these southern African Americans decided to vote largely for Republicans, as they had after the Civil War, then southern Democrats would be replaced with Republicans. If this happened, then Democrats would no longer remain in control of Congress.
LBJ realized that the Democrats needed to restore the rest of the civil rights that had been granted by Republicans in 1875 - without giving the Republicans credit - if they were to retain control of Congress. The main obstacle to achieving this was southern Democrats.
He needed a new cause to champion to accomplish this. MLK was about to give him one.
Now that African Americans were able to register and vote in the South without intimidation, MLK turned his attention to acts of discrimination in the North.
So, in 1966, MLK went to Chicago to see for himself if the reports that he had heard about racial discrimination in housing were true. He soon found that things were worse than he had heard.
MLK conducted an experiment where he sent European American and African American couples, who were the same in income, etc, to various real estate offices. The real estate offices invariably sent the European Americans to newer housing in neighborhoods with lower crime rates and better schools, while invariably the African American couples were sent to older housing in neighborhoods with higher crime rates and substandard schools.
So, MLK began a series of peaceful protests and marches to end this housing discrimination in Chicago. However, he soon found the Chicago Open Housing Movement was facing harsher attacks than any that he had experienced in the South. He was personally assaulted numerous times while the Chicago police refused to intervene.
MLK realized that the only way to end this discrimination was federal legislation. However, both Southern and Northern Democrats were against this as well as the National Association of Real Estate Boards, one of their largest contributors. This issue alone destroyed all efforts in 1966 to fill in the remaining gaps between current law and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
However, the Fair Housing Act was introduced in January of 1967 to address this discrimination in housing. It met fierce opposition in the House of Representative by Democrats, but almost none from Republicans. It looked like another lost cause.
So, MLK largely gave up on this effort in 1967, and turned his attention to opposing the Vietnam War. This was a costly mistake. It diverted his attention from finishing the fight for civil rights. It also caused friction with his allies in the fight for Civil Rights, including Billy Graham and LBJ.
However, the efforts of MLK to get fair housing in Chicago the previous year had set off an expected series of events. Soon, there were riots over fair housing across large cities during the summer of 1967.
So the Fair Housing Act was amended to have all of the remaining gaps between current law and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 filled. It was also expanded to include more legislation to protect peaceful protesters as well as the rights of other groups like Native Americans.
The House of Representative then passed this greatly expanded Fair Housing Act and sent it to the Senate in August of 1967.
The southern Democrats in the Senate immediately filibustered the Fair Housing Act.
However, MLK was encouraged and returned his attention to civil rights again in 1968. He organized the Poor People's Campaign to address matters of economic justice.
This effort was largely unsuccessful because the goals were too vague and too broad.
However, in March of 1968, the Senate Republican leader, Everitt Dirksen, was able to defeat the southern Democrat filibuster by a very slim margin, when he made a minor adjustment to one of the provisions.
Then on April 4th of 1968, the day that the amended Fair Housing Act was to go to a vote in the Senate, MLK was assassinated. Civil unrest sprang up across the country.
The next day, LBJ urged the House of Representatives to pass the Fair Housing Act.
Five days later the House of Representatives passed the Fair Housing Act and renamed it the Civil Rights Act of 1968. LBJ signed it into law the next day.
So, thanks to the efforts of MLK, the protections given by Republicans in the Civil Rights Act of 1875 finally became a reality ninety-three years later.
However, LBJ was successful in his efforts to do this without the Republicans getting credit.
The voting public saw a Democrat president sign a law that was sent to him by a Democrat controlled Congress. They seemed to have forgotten that almost all of the opposition to civil rights was also from Democrats. LBJ had managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the sheeple.
The Legacy of MLK
So, Americans celebrate MLK Day because of the civil rights that MLK made possible.
During his thirteen year struggle, MLK had been arrested twenty-nine times, had his home bombed twice, was stabbed once, assaulted numerous times, and finally killed for his stand for civil rights.
MLK overcame all opposition because he had heroic resolve. He secured civil rights for all Americans when he gave the last full measure of devotion.
MLK could see that in reality we are all just one of six shades of brown. He understood that even the concept of that there is such a thing as an interracial marriage is wrong.
MLK was right. There is only one race - the human race. The Father of Truth has made all people from the same source (Acts 17:24-26).
MLK was following the call of the Father of Truth on his life to end the unjust treatment of people, so he experienced persecution as promised in the Book of Truth (2 Timothy 3:12).
MLK was an imitator of the Man of Truth in this regard.
The Man of Truth laid down his life for the sake of people of every race (John 10:14-16). He has laid down his life to deliver the human race from oppression (Hebrews 2:9-15).
However, the Man of Truth laid his life down voluntarily, so he could take it back up again (John 10:17-18).
Since the Father of Truth raised him from the dead, the Man of Truth will one day ensure that all people are treated according to the contents of their hearts (Acts 17:30-31).
The problem is that nothing MLK did can solve all discrimination problems, because the human heart is full of corruption (Jeremiah 17:9). People cannot end the discrimination with an unchanged heart (Romans 8:7).
People must come into the House of Truth and have their heart changed to truly end discrimination (John 3:6-8). As MLK preached, all men are sinners before the Father of Truth, and need to come into the House of Truth (Romans 3:22-26).
So, like MLK, make the Man of Truth your king, because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). The right to come into the House of Truth is a universal right given by the Father of Truth (Romans 10:10-13).
Come into the House of Truth!
posted by The House Of Truth @ January 20, 2020
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