In honor and in remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence visited the Martin Luther King Jr., memorial in Washington, D.C. today. The two were only at the memorial for a few short moments, but while they were there, they placed a wreath at the foot of the statue.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s name has justifiably become synonymous with civil rights in the United States.Dr. King is best known for advancing civil rights while advocating in a nonviolent manner, a term he liked to refer to as “nonviolent civil disobedience.” D. King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia and was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee at the young age of thirty-nine. Dr. King played a leading role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted a whole year as a result of Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin being arrested and harassed over refusing to give their seats on the bus up to white people. Dr. King’s role in the bus boycott propel ed him to the national spotlight in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans.
Dr. King wrote the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” after being jailed during the 1963 Birmingham Campaign. In the letter, Dr. King argued that all that had been done in the civil rights struggle was to disrupt legal but unjust laws. Dr. King is also famous for his speech “I Have a Dream” delivered in 1963, which has come to be regarded as one of the finest speeches in American history. His words helped facilitate the civil rights act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, religion, or national origin.
Earlier today, Trump tweeted, “Today we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God,” he said. The President also linked to a longer statement on the White House website.
