OCR Text |
Show 14 Jan. 12, 1995 Hilltop Times lr Martin Luther King Jr. Day America off 193 mnnuclh. different from today's by Jim Garamone American Forces Information Service n Heritage Committee is hosting this year's commemoraat the base chapel, today at 2 p.m. Jacqueline Thompson, a former employee, is the guest speaker. Employees wishing to attend the ceremony The tive service African-America- A Martin Luther King Jr. walked to the podium set up Lin front of the Lincoln s Memorial in Washington, he faced a much different United States from the one we know today. It was Aug. 28, 1963. John F. Kennedy was president and three months away from assassination in Dallas. Americans turned on televisions to see rockets launch Mercury capsules into space. U.S. astronaut Air Force Maj. Gordon Cooper orbited Earth 22 times in his Faith 7 capsule. But the United States was still far behind the Russians in the Space Race. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax was blowing away the National League, and the New York Yankees were heading for an October showdown with Koufax and crew. The Beatles were an bell-shape- d band in Great Britain, but few Americans had heard of them. The most popular programs on television were "The Ed Sullivan Show," westerns and "77 Sunset Strip." Walter Cronkite was doing the CBS News and kids were watching reruns of "The Mickey Mouse Club." Johnny Carson had just taken over "The Tonight Show" from Jack Parr critics weren't sure Johnny would last. In the movies "The Longest Day" an epic starring everyone about was big as the Normandy invasion was "Cleopatra," starring Liz Taylor Hill will be released to attend without being charged leave time if mission requirements permit. An interpreter for the hearing impaired will be provided. For more information, contact SMSgt. Roy Tolbert, Ext. white counterparts: separate and unequal in many places. The American South was the battleground for the fight for equality. King's philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience was the primary vehicle for changing attitudes in the South. s Yet there were who wished a more confrontational approach. Racial segregation was the rule in the American South. There were "whites only" bathrooms and drinking fountains and lunch counters. Interstate bus and train travel was still segregated in many areas. Southern blacks were pitted against the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Councils. These groups were dedicated to segregation and used terror and brutality to keep the races separate. In April 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. brought the fight for racial equalia ty came to Birmingham, Ala. in most he called the segregated city the United States. Blacks and white . supporters took to the streets. Police, I led by Commissioner T. Eugene "Bull" Connor, arrested more than 400 King called for another demonstration on Good Friday. Connor obtained an injunction against it, but the civil rights leader went on anyway. Birmingham police arrested many, including King. In May there were more arrests, and when 2,500 blacks stormed into the streets of Birmingham, Connor fire greeted them with African-American- and Richard Burton. Doris Day and James Garner starred in "The Thrill of It All" and the Charlton Heston film "55 Days at Peking" was playing at the local drive-i- theater. The Soviet Union was the Free World's biggest enemy. Kennedy traveled to Berlin, the hotspot of the Cold War, and told the crowd "Ich bin ein Berliner." The Navy submarine USS Thresher sank with all hands in April. Few Americans had heard of Southeast Asia. Laos was in the news, but there were few American servicemembers in that country. The Green Berets were making a name for themselves in South Vietnam, but the big build-u- p lay in the future. Nuclear war was a worry to Americans. Many built backyard bomb shelters, schools staged nuclear attack drills, and the U.S. Senate was struggling over the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that would outlaw atmospheric nuclear testing. It would pass, but many people worried about the "missile gap" with the Soviet Union. Folk music was enjoying its heyday on American airwaves. "Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley," Peter, Paul and Mary, the Kingston n REAM MARTIN Trio and things called "Hootenan-nys- " were big. Elvis just hadn't been the same since he got out of the Army, and Chubby Checker and the Twist were ruining backs and knees all over America. Stamps went from 4 to 5 cents, and the Post Office introduced the it ZIP code. Top sirloin was 85 cents a pound and a dozen ears of fresh corn, 39 cents. The United States was celebrating the centennial anniversary of the American Civil War. In July, 10,000 men Pickett's Charge durthe commemoration of the Battle ing of Gettysburg. Another centennial anniversary was that of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The promise of that proclamation was especially important in 1963. Lincoln issued the document to free the slaves on Jan. 1, 1863. One hundred years later, the descendants of those slaves were still waiting for its fulfillment. There were no such terms as five-dig- or "black" in In the press and across America the term was "Negro." Across the "African-American- " 1963. al prosperity; 100 years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. "So we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of 1929-196- 8 Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was Have a Dream' Speech the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as "I am happy to join with you today in what will go white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights down in history as the greatest demonstration for free- of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. dom in the history of our nation. "It is obvious today that America has defaulted on "Fivescore years ago, a great American, in whose this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligasymbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as tion, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves a check which has come back marked 'insufficient who had been seared in the flames of withering infunds.' We refuse to believe that there are insufficient came a to as end the It joyous daybreak justice. long funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. of their And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will night captivity. "But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free; 100 give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled security of justice. "We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind by the manacles of segregation and the chains of dis100 lives in a the of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time America later, crimination; lonely Negro years island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of materi to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the f nation blacks were striving to collect on promises made a century before. Their lives were different from their ) LUTHER W w KING I 'I . African-American- s. high-pressu- re tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the! moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. "But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plain of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to generate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heichts of meet ing physical force with soul force; and the marvelous! new militancy, which has engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a distrust of all white people For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their |