This coming Monday, this year on the actual date, we will celebrate the 95th birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King, assassinated in 1968 was often times referred to as an activist. There have been times in the history of our nation, when the word activist has been interpreted in a negative way, with there being something bad, conniving, or some other derogatory meaning regarding being an activist.

The word activist comes from the root, active, more specifically act. To act means that you are doing something, actually doing something, maybe playing a sport, performing on a stage, or doing a chore, or going to work, or mowing the lawn, or performing on a stage or some other location, or standing up and expressing yourself on behalf of other people who may not be able to stand up for themselves, and that is the definition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In looking back at Dr. King’s life, he was a Baptist Preacher. He was a powerful speaker, who inspired with his words, his passion, and his commitment to others. He was a man who saw wrong and tried to right it. He saw poverty and tried to erase it, he saw unfairness, inequity, violence, mistreatment, and intolerance and tried to fight it, but he did not want, nor did he urge, the fighting to be in a physical way. Everything Dr. King tried to do was in a positive active way. He got his hands into the dough, so to speak. He worked it as a baker kneads bread, trying to, and hoping to, create something positive at the end of his work.

Dr. King didn’t just talk the talk. He walked the walk too. He was at the front of a movement toward peace among all people during his time of service to others. He didn’t hide behind anyone. He was one who wasn’t afraid to let his peaceful actions speak louder that his words, no matter what consequence was imposed on him.

Some of the actions of Dr. King were:

≤ Joins the bus boycott after Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1. On December 5, he is elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, making him the official spokesperson for the boycott. (1955).

≤ King forms the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation and achieve civil rights. On May 17, Dr. King speaks to a crowd of 15,000 in Washington, D.C. (1957)

≤ Met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Grange on problem affecting black Americans. (1958)

≤ Visited India to study Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. (1959)

≤ He moves to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. (1959)

≤ In Atlanta, King is arrested during a sit-in waiting to be served at a restaurant. He is sentenced to four months in jail, but after intervention by John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, he is released. (1960)

≤ After the initial group of Freedom Riders seeking to integrate bus terminals is assaulted in Alabama, King addresses a mass rally at a mob-besieged Montgomery church. (1961)

≤ King, Ralph Abernathy, Albany Movement president William G. Anderson, and other protesters are arrested by Laurie Pritchett during a campaign in Albany, Georgia. (1961)

≤ During the unsuccessful Albany, Georgia movement, King is arrested on July 27 and jailed. (1962)

≤ On Good Friday, April 12, King is arrested with Ralph Abernathy by Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor for demonstrating without a permit. (1963)

≤ June 23, MLK leads 125,000 people on a Freedom Walk in Detroit. (1963)

≤ August 28, the March on Washington becomes the largest civil rights demonstration in history with nearly 250,000 people in attendance and King makes his famous I Have a Dream speech. (1963)

≤ King attends the signing ceremony of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the White House on July 2nd (1964)

≤ King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. Dr. King is the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at age 35. (1964)

≤ After President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, Martin Luther King, Jr. turns to socioeconomic problems. (1965)

≤ On January 22, King moves into a Chicago slum tenement to attract attention to the living condition of the poor. (1966)

* On July 10, King initiates a campaign to end discrimination in housing, employment, and schools in Chicago. (1966)

≤ On November 27, King announces the inception of the Poor People’s Campaign focusing on jobs and freedom for the poor of all races. (1967)

≤ King announces that the Poor People’s Campaign will culminate in a March on Washington demanding a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights guaranteeing employment to the able-bodied, income to those unable to work, and an end to housing discrimination. (1967)

≤ At sunset on April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. (1968)

These are just 20 facts on the timeline of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s public life as an activist. He was definitely a person who acted, who marched, who showed up at the front of lines advocating for all people, was often jailed, and eventually killed for standing up and acting on behalf of so many. It is fitting that we honor the day he came into this world, a world which he advocated for so staunchly.