Civil rights leader Martin Luther King
in Montgomery, Alabama, April 29, 1966.
(Photo: JRT / AP)

1. “‘The dream’: One generation imagines, another never doubts”
“Coming a day after the nation celebrated Martin Luther King’s 80th birthday, Barack Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s 44th president is historically significant not just for those who came of age during the civil rights era and never thought they’d see a black U.S. president, but for a younger generation of Americans, some of whom never doubted they could,” quoting this very nice Seattle Times story.

2. “MLK’s Dream Also Included Economic Justice”
“More than four decades later, King scholars say he would take the same approach at this historic moment – the inauguration of the first black president at a time when the nation is facing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The crisis could widen the already large financial gaps between whites and blacks and make it more difficult to attain King’s dream of economic equality in America…

Although King is best known for his civil rights work, he was a staunch advocate for economic justice. In the months before he was killed, he had been working on the Poor People’s Campaign and calling for an economic bill of rights. When he was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis supporting a sanitation workers’ strike,” quoting the AP in Truthout.

3. “Dedicated to the Proposition: Beyond Civil Rights”
“One woman named on the program of the 1963 March on Washington never got to speak.

Gloria Richardson was a well-known confrontational activist from Cambridge, Md. She successfully fought there for equal economic and social rights for all African-Americans citizens. But when she stood at the podium at the march, she says the microphone was taken away: she was seen as too radical,” quoting NPR’s The Story. [Ed. Note: I loved this interview and Ms. Richardson’s frank truth!].

4. “King to be honored in assemblies”
“Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. will be honored in local schools in the coming days,” quoting the NVN.