Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States. It’s a day to celebrate the achievements of a civil rights icon – a chance to look back at how much progress that has been made and to look ahead at the tremendous amount work still left to be done in the name of equality.
This year will also mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, which he delivered during the March to Washington. While desegregation and racial harmony were key demands, the march also pushed for more jobs and the elimination of discrimination in hiring practices.
Over 200,000 people joined the demonstration for civil rights. The march had been organized, in part, with the help of labour unions. Asa Philip Randolph, an African-American labour leader, was the march’s head organizer. On that historic day, Randolph told the Times-News that it was “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the nation’s history.”
In 1964, a few months after the U.S. congress passed the Civil Rights Act, Dr. King was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. During the award ceremony, Nobel Committee Chairman Gunnar Jahn noted the following about Dr. King:
“He is the first person in the Western world to have shown us that a struggle can be waged without violence. He is the first to make the message of brotherly love a reality in the course of his struggle, and he has brought this message to all men, to all nations and races.”