Tagged: MLK Holiday

Under Jim Crow laws, black Americans were relegated to a subordinate status for decades. Things like literacy tests for voters and laws designed to prevent blacks from serving on juries were commonplace in nearly a dozen Southern states.

As you can tell, if you managed to hear any or all of today's program, then you know that the central question we've been grappling with is what exactly does Dr. King's life and message mean to us now, some 43 years after his death and so many years after the largely successful conclusion of the specific campaigns that defined his adult life.

On Monday, Martin Luther King Junior will be honored in a variety of ways around the region as we observe this federal holiday.

It’s a day of reflection and possibly a time to renew intentions that keep Dr. King’s dream alive.

This week Northeast Washington learned one of its residents is suspected of being a Neo-Nazi terrorist. The FBI arrested 36-year-old Kevin Harpham for allegedly planting a bomb in a backpack along the route of Spokane's Martin Luther King Day Parade. Harpham is now being held at the Spokane County Jail.

Not all kids are enjoying a day off thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr.  Teachers and administrators at Hyla Middle School on Bainbridge Island see it as the perfect time to give students a new perspective on the civil rights leader.  

Many of us are happy to have a day off, whenever and wherever we can get it. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is no exception. But besides sleeping in and catching up on chores, there is an opportunity to spend part of the day celebrating the life and values of King, honored for his nonviolent activism in the civil rights movement.

Many of the celebrations take place over three days. And many of them are opportunities to participate in service activities such as EarthCorps' event to remove invasive plants.