An MLK Day Miscellany

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America, and I've gathered a collection of relevant and interesting links in honor of the great man's birthday.

LIFE has just released an selection of never-before-seen images taken by Paul Schutzer of Dr. King and his involvement with the Freedom Rides in the South.  I respectfully submit that anyone who doesn't "remember it as being all that bad" should take a look at these.  

PBS has a section dedicated to the 1987 documentary Eyes On The Prize, which will be rebroadcast on April 1, 8, and 15. One of the many things you can view on the website is footage of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which includes a portion of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech.  If you have never read the speech in its entirety, I encourage you to do so.  

More than at any other time in recent memory, music was a force for social change during the 1960s. Bernice Johnson Reagon discusses in her excellent essay "Music and the Civil Rights Movement" just how important music was to those involved in the struggle, and what purposes it served.

Here's the complete video of "Civil Rights: The Music and the Movement," a panel hosted by the University of California/Davis' Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on January 15, 2009.  Mavis Staples discusses music's role in the movement with Jeffrey Callison and Dr. Milmon Harrison.

From NPR's Take Five: A Weekly Jazz Sampler comes "Songs of the Civil Rights Movement," a short list of jazz and jazz/blues covers of inspirational songs from the era (originally published on January 18, 2010).

Likewise, Rolling Stone contributing editor David Wild has assembled a playlist of inspirational songs for this day.  "Dignity": An Uplifting Playlist For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Huffington Post)

Wild heads off the list with "Dignity," which is one of my favorite of Bob Dylan's latter-day songs.  Here's a video of him performing it on MTV's Unplugged in 1995.

Searchin' high/Searchin' low/Searchin' everywhere I know/

Askin' the cops wherever I go/Have you seen dignity?

Dr. King, this world sure could use some of your dignity right about now.

"And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.

And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.  You don't have to have a college degree to serve.  You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.  You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.  You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.  And you can be that servant."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from "The Drum Major Instinct,"  

February 4th, 1968

"You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.

Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life for all."

- Christ speaking to His disciples, Mark 10:42(b)-45 (NKJV); Dr. King used the passage these verses are taken from as the basis for his "Drum Major Instinct" sermon.