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Today we celebrate the birthday of one of America\u2019s greatest leaders, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,\u00a0who\u00a0<\/span>would have been 87.\u00a0<\/span>What a different place America might have been had he lived.\u00a0<\/span>He was gunned down<\/span>\u00a0in 1968<\/span>\u00a0at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he was rallying in support of the\u00a0<\/span>sanitation workers’ strike after<\/span>\u00a0workers<\/span><\/span>\u00a0had been killed on the job due to unsafe conditions. MLK is revered by National Consumers League and labor leaders alike.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
What made MLK such a great leader? He rose above the fray, and he made connections with issues beyond his own sphere. He opposed the Vietnam War, he\u00a0fought the\u00a0militant and divisive image of Malcolm X, the public face of the Nation of Islam, he spoke against anti-Semitism, and he drew connections between worker protections and the civil rights movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. King\u2019s legacy as a civil rights icon and irreplaceable voice of humanity and nonviolence is very much with us today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As I watched the 2015 Kennedy Center Awards, I thought of Dr.\u00a0King and how I think he would have been proud of the mosaic of honorees that night. He played an enormous role in making\u00a0all of this\u00a0possible by waging a struggle for civil rights for all Americans. And though there is much work to be done and American\u00a0has many problems ahead of us, the Kennedy Center Awards evening showcases America\u2019s best qualities:\u00a0<\/p>\n
George Lucas, the Star Wars creator and director, a\u00a0hugely original creative mind and a\u00a0white man\u00a0–\u00a0married to an African American woman; Cicely Tyson, a 90 year old African American actress with a stunning list of credits who is currently \u2013 yes currently \u2013 acting in the Broadway show The Gin Game with James Earl Jones.<\/p>\n
Rita Moreno, an 84 year old Puerto Rican dancer, singer and actress who has won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and Tony award<\/p>\n
Seiji Ozawa, Japanese-born conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra who served for 29 years in that role<\/p>\n
Carole King, a Jew from Brooklyn whose iconic hits like \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Friend\u201d and \u201cUp on the Roof\u201d have been recorded by African American singers\u00a0like the Drifters and singers like Ben E King; and whose song \u201cNatural Woman\u201d was\u00a0stunningly performed by Aretha Franklin on the Kennedy Center Stage before an audience that included America\u2019s first African American President and first lady. \u00a0<\/p>\n
We miss the wisdom and presence of the great leaders, like Dr. King, but his legacy is with us every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today we celebrate the birthday of one of America\u2019s greatest leaders, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,\u00a0who\u00a0would have been 87.\u00a0What a different place America might have been had he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2331"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13851,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2331\/revisions\/13851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}