Martin Luther King Jr. Day

REST IN POWER | 1965 Civil Rights March, Selma, Alabama | Photographs by: Dennis Hopper

Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been observed on the third Monday of January since 1986 to reflect on the 'Good Trouble' John Lewis encouraged, and King championed to end racial inequality and segregation.

While Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a time to commemorate the great civil rights leader, it is also a reminder to embrace the spirit of the 1960s civil rights movement and find a way to echo that "Good Trouble" by taking action against injustice and discrimination.

The 1964 book WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King Jr. describes 1963 as a landmark year in the civil rights movement. The book is said to be inspired by King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and is about the nonviolent movement against racial segregation in the United States, specifically the 1963 Birmingham campaign. In the book, Martin Luther King Jr. writes,

“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles of racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

King's words, "It is always the right time to do the right thing," could not be more relevant. The time for United Nations member states to ensure Native Peoples' Human Rights, Treaty Rights, and Civil Rights and wholly implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is now.

Learn from King's legacy of nonviolent social change