"The ultimate measure of individuals is not when they stand in comfort and convenience, but in danger and difficulty."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Coretta Scott King
Otis Moss, Jr.
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Children’s Crusade
Letter From a Birmingham Jail The March on Washington Civil Rights Act
Nobel Peace Prize Selma & the Voting Rights Act
Dr. King's Visit to Shaker Heights
The Poor People’s Campaign It Starts With Me
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14
Special thanks to the many volunteers who contributed to this two week focus on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. including but not limited to: Student Group on Race Relations (SGORR), Shaker Schools Foundation, Family And Community Engagement Center (FACE), Shaker Heights Public Library, Shaker Heights Schools faculty and staff, Shaker Arts Council, and the Shaker Heights Parent Teacher Organization (PTO).
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born Michael Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. There he grew up with his three siblings, A.D. King, Donn Clendenon, Christine King Farris, and parents, Reverend Michael King Sr. and Alberta King. When Dr. King was five years old his father visited Germany, and became so passionate about Martin Luther, a German reformer, that he changed his name, and by effect his son’s, to Martin Luther King. King's father and grandfather, James King, were both pastors at Ebenezer Baptist Church. His family was always involved in the church, but it was not until his senior year of high school that King began pursuing a career in theology and preaching.
Following his high school graduation, at age 15, King studied for a sociology degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia an all male Historically Black Colleges & Universities reputable for its liberal arts courses. King was crowned Valedictorian of his class at Morehouse when he graduated in 1948 and went on to attend Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he connected his Christianity to a call for racial reconciliation. King finished ministry school in 1951 then completed his dissertation on systematic theology at Boston University in April 1955.
Coretta Scott King was an African American civil rights leader, activist, author, and the wife of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was born April 27, 1927 in Marion, Alabama to Obadiah Scott, a businessman, and Bernice McMurray Scott, a talented singer. She had three siblings and during her childhood, she was known to use singing and playing the violin as a form of activism. Coretta attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio where she studied music before transferring to the New England Conservatory in Boston. She met her future husband, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while they were both students in Boston.
Soon, they began to work side by side in the fight for equality and Coretta established her own career as an activist. During her lifetime, she took part in many events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and worked to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She also made way to Ghana to mark their nation's independence in 1957. After her husband's assasination Mrs. King successfully lobbied for his birthday to become a federal holiday. Dr. King is only one of two individuals to be honored with a National holiday in recognition of their birthday. She continually took action to make the world a better place long after Dr. King's departure.
Coretta Scott King passed away from cancer on January 30, 2006. She was laid in state at Georgia's State Capitol, being the first woman and African American with that honor.
Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr. has been fighting for social justice issues since the Civil Rights Movement. Rev. Moss was born on February 26, 1935 to Magnolia Moss and Otis Moss, Sr. Orphaned at 16 years old, he went on to earn his Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College in 1956, where he befriended Dr. King. Rev. Moss participated in every major struggle during the Civil Rights Movement. He was arrested for sit-ins pushing for desegregation, helped to plan the March on Washington, and marched from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights, just to name a few. He was recognized for these sacrifices by being inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.
Rev. Moss received his Master of Divinity Degree and a Doctor of Ministry Degree. In 1975, he became the pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland. As the leader of one of the area's most powerful churches for 33 years, he advocated for quality housing, education and medical care. In 1997, Rev. Moss partnered with University Hospitals for the Otis Moss, Jr. University Hospitals Health Center offering high-quality patient care in a spiritually supportive environment with integrated social and economic services.
Rev. Moss has counseled thousands of our neighbors and three presidents, received numerous awards, holds eight honorary degrees, and has preached the gospel around the world. Shaker Heights is honored to have him be the guest speaker for the 2023 MLK Day Commemoration.
Edwina Hudson Smith Moss has played a supportive role to many well known Civil Rights leaders including her husband, Otis Moss, Jr., and Martin Luther King, Jr. Edwina's activism first began as the President for the Youth Council of a local NAACP chapter, but it was a student-led rally with Dr. King that steered her towards the contributions she is known for. From 1961-66, Edwina worked as the assistant to Wyatt Tee Walker and Andrew Young, Executive Directors for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) directly under Dr. King’s leadership. She helped to organize the Civil Rights Movement by working in the background with many other influential women whom she often acknowledges. “Young women, older women, women all over the South were really the major leaders in the Movement. The men got all the credit because they were out front. But the women were really the backbone of the movement.” Edwina worked with the SCLC until she married Otis Moss, Jr. in a ceremony officiated by their friend, Martin Luther King, Jr. They have three children, Kevin, Daphne (deceased), and Otis, III. They are also the proud grandparents of five grandchildren and two greatgranddaughters.
Speak with civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr., A.I.
When Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was 26 years old, he led the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to spearhead a boycott of the city’s municipal bus company. When Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955 for not giving up her seat to a white man on the bus, the MIA decided to boycott the city's buses because of their segregation in hopes of forcing the companies to change their policy. On January 30, 1956 Dr. King’s home was bombed for his leadership role in the bus boycott. About 90 participants in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, including Dr. King, were indicted under a law against protesting businesses as the bus company went bankrupt due to the boycott. Found guilty, Dr. Ki i di t l l d th d i i D Ki ’ t i l d
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is a civil rights organization founded in 1957, as an offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). At 28 years old, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others, founded the SCLC in order to have a regional organization that could better coordinate civil rights protest activities across the South. From the beginning, the SCLC focused its efforts on citizenship schools and efforts to desegregate individual cities such as Albany, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama along with playing large roles in events like the March on Washington. Dr. King was the president of the newfound association which fought for civil rights through boycotts and other non-violent means. The SCLC also broadened its focus to include issues of economic inequality, starting the Poor People's Campaign in 1967. SCLC not only laid the groundwork for non-violent protest over the past thirty years and is currently being lead by Bernard Lafayette and Charles Steele Jr. and continues to fight for civil rights, focusing on contemporary issues such as police
At age 34, Dr. King and other civil rights leaders planned to desegregate Birmingham, a city known for its discriminatory practices, by using non-violent tactics. SCLC leader James Bevel started to enact plans for a “Children’s Crusade” that he and other leaders believed might help turn the tide in Birmingham.
On May 2, 1963, more than one thousand students, ages ranging from 7-18 years old, skipped classes and gathered at 16th Street Baptist Church to march to downtown Birmingham, Alabama. As they peacefully approached police lines, hundreds were arrested and carried off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses. When hundreds more young people gathered the following day for another march, white commissioner, Bull Connor, directed the local police and fire departments to use force to halt the demonstration. Photos of the children being attacked gained national attention, which forced Birmingham’s officials to
PK-4: Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson 5-8: We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March by Cynthia Levinson Teens:The Young Crusaders: The Untold Story of the Children and Teenagers Who Galvanized the Civil Rights Movement by V.P. Franklin
How would you describe the students who marched in the Children's Crusade?
Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson read by Shakerite Gina Ambercrombie-Winstanley
On April 12, 1963, when he was 34 years old, Dr. King was arrested for the thirteenth time and sentenced to jail for leading a nonviolent march designated to bring national attention to racism, breaking a state law that banned mass gatherings. While in solitary confinement, he wrote the famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Dr. King began writing after reading an open letter in the newspaper written by Christian and Jewish leaders who were criticizing both the demonstration and King himself. Initially, the letter was written on the margins and small scraps of the newspaper. Dr. King wrote that people have a moral responsibility to stand up and take action for what they believe in, rather than waiting for the justices to come from the court. An example he included explains how himself, along with many demonstrators, risk their lives for change while others sit on the sidelines. Dr. King got help from his lawyer, Clarence B. Jones, by asking him to smuggle the letter out of the jail and
When Dr. King was 34 years old, he helped to organize the March for Jobs and Freedom with A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. More commonly known as the March on Washington, this event was a significant civil rights protest that took place on August 28, 1963. Around 250,000 people from all over the country gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial to protest for economic justice. The March on Washington was also meant to draw attention to the many challenges that African Americans faced. One of the most memorable moments of the march was when Rev
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, and national origin. Originally this legislation was proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 after protests, boycotts, sit-ins, and the Children’s Crusade all of which were led by civil rights activists, including 34-year-old Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and 23-year-old John Lewis. Four days after Lyndon B. Johnson became president, he put pressure on Congress to get the bill passed. After almost 100 amendments were rejected that tried to weaken the bill, it was passed on July 2nd, 1964. This pivotal legislation was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson and accompanied by civil rights leaders. The Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation and started the movement to desegregate schools and other public places. This act was the model for other civil rights laws and has been the foundation for legal decisions protecting the rights of many groups who have been oppressed in the United States.
On December 10, 1964, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Prize for Peace during an awards ceremony in Oslo, Norway. At the age of 35, Dr. King was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Established in 1897, this award is to be given “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”
When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. This prestigious award propelled the modern American Civil Rights Movement into global and renowned recognition. After receiving the award, Dr. King stated in his speech, "this Nobel Prize was won by a movement of great people, whose discipline, wise restraint, and majestic
In early 1965, a 36 year old Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) made Selma, Alabama, the focus of its efforts to register Black voters in the South. Alabama’s Governor George Wallace, who was a notorious opponent of desegregation, and the local county sheriff led a steadfast opposition to Black voter registration drives; as only 2 percent of Selma’s eligible African American voters had managed to register.
On March 7, 1965 six hundred marchers got as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge, outside Selma, when they were attacked by state troopers wielding whips, nightsticks and tear gas. The brutal scene was captured on television, enraging many Americans and drawing civil rights and religious leaders of all faiths to Selma in protest. On March 21, 1965 some 2,000 protesters set out on the three-day journey, this time under federal control, protected by the U.S. Army troops and Alabama National Guard forces. “No tide of racism can stop us,” Dr. King proclaimed from the steps of the state capitol building, addressing the nearly 50,000 supporters who met the marchers in Montgomery. This victory in Selma brought widespread attention to voting rights in the south and the eventual creation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed all U.S. citizens to vote.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made a visit to Shaker Heights, Ohio in 1965, when he was 36 years old. Although Dr. King was invited by Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell and her husband Rev. Dr. Albert M. Pennybacker of Heights Christian Church, he was not permitted to speak in the sanctuary. Instead, some officials used the excuse that the facilities were under construction. Undaunted, the Reverends arranged for him to speak outside on the side porch of Heights Christian Church on Van Aken Blvd. Due to threats of violence to members of the congregation and many residents, a police officer spent the night inside the church before the event to help protect the property. While many people did not support Dr. King’s visit, it is estimated that about 1,000 people attended the weekday speech to hear him talk about the Civil Rights mission.
Dr. King’s many visits to the greater Cleveland area were in large part to help Carl Stoke’s political campaigns. Carl Stokes t ll l t d f Cl l d Ohi i N b
The Poor People's Campaign was established by Dr. King and the SCLC in November 1967 as the next struggle for genuine equality. While some doubted this ambitious goal for economic freedom, Dr. King believed it was “the beginning of a new co-operation, understanding, and a determination by poor people of all colors and backgrounds to assert and win their right to a decent life and respect for their culture and dignity” (SCLC, 15 March 1968). They began to organize the Poor People's March on Washington to help bring attention to economic justice for poor people in the U.S.
Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 and did not make it to the Poor People’s March on Washington, but Coretta Scott King and thousands of other women began demonstrations on Mother’s Day, May 12, 1968. A temporary settlement was established on the Mall in Washington, D.C. where approximately 3000 protestors stayed between May 14- June 24, 1968. They organized a set of demands for Congress for free surplus food distribution to 200 counties and promises from federal agencies to hire poor people
Though Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at 39 years old in Memphis, Tennessee, his legacy lives on. The work that MLK championed during the Civil Rights Movement continues through each of us.
“The King Center embraces the conviction that the Beloved Community can be achieved through an unshakable commitment to nonviolence” and offers a way forward. By using Dr. King’s Fundamental Philosophy of Nonviolence and his Six Steps for Nonviolent Social Change we can carry on his legacy of agape love.
The violence, oppression, inequity, injustice, and hate in our world has to STOP.
I have a responsibility and role to play in creating social change for a more just, humane, equitable, and peaceful world.
“BE LOVE is a movement born amid the immense uncertainty and global tension”, challenging this generation, to help society. By acknowledging the following statements, you can help unravel critical issues facing humanity. 1. 2. 3.
The decision is mine whether to do nothing in this moment, or to have the courage to stand up for justice
If you agree then it’s time to take the BE LOVE Pledge and help to create what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called The Beloved Community!
The Martin Luther King, Jr Commemoration and Celebration was achieved through the collaborative efforts of:
The City of Shaker Heights
The Shaker Heights City School District
The Shaker Heights Public Library
