45th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Assassination

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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April 4, 2013

By Senator Bert Johnson, Huffington Post

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On April 4, 45 years ago, at 6:01 p.m., at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the age of 39.

Dr. King once said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

These words endure to this day. Though we’ve witnessed tremendous progress since segregation, the bus boycotts, the three marches on Selma, and the other events that shaped the course of civil rights in America, the work is not complete. Though we’ve taken major strides, we still must work to create our more perfect union.

Sadly, there are communities and people across the nation who are still disenfranchised and relegated to an unequal status. I am talking about a young black boy or girl struggling to overcome the institutional racism embedded in certain U.S. policies; or the Hispanic child of immigrant parents caught up in our broken immigration system; or our brother or sister in the LGBTQI community who lacks even the most simple of rights we enjoy…

As an affirmation of our duties to the common good and as a rallying cry for those feeling frustrated with incremental change and seemingly endless setbacks — particularly in Detroit where our people are distressed, demoralized and sick and tired of being sick and tired — I leave you with one last quote by Dr. King:

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

It’s also why today, 45 years after the assassination of one of our finest leaders, Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy lives on.

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