Today is the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Were he alive today, nearly 47 years after his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, he would be 86 years of age.
Posted: 01/19/2015 10:03 am
ESTThis weekend our nation will observe its annual commemoration of this great man's life. It comes at a time when national and international events have provoked a lot of discussion about what Dr. King would say or do in response to those events if he were alive today.
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| Dr. Martin Luther King |
An entire generation of Americans has grown up associating Dr. King almost exclusively with his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech (which I copyrighted; it is now one of the most valuable intellectual properties of the King estate). Few people today know of his opinions on issues like poverty and income inequality, or of his early support for Israel and his public opposition to the war in Vietnam.
Although I have no polling data to support my belief, I estimate that he enjoyed an approval rating of 80 percent or higher at the time of his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, but that his approval rating had probably dipped to 40 percent or lower by the time he was assassinated five years later.
This blog post addresses some of the important contemporary domestic and international issues that I believe would be of major concern to Dr. King if he were alive today. My statements are not based on what I have read or on what some third party told me. They are based on my personal recollections of conversations and discussions I had with Dr. King one-on-one, and of conversations we had together with third parties, over the approximately seven years I worked with him as a political advisor, personal lawyer and draft speechwriter. more
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