Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which celebrates his birth on January 15, 1929.

Dr. King was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which protested racial discrimination in federal and state law.

Dr. King spoke at Ohio Northern University on January 11, 1968.

During the speech, he said he is asked all the time if there has been any real progress in the struggle for racial justice.

For the answer, he shared what he called a realistic position, “Which combines the truths of two opposites while avoiding the extremes of both. The realistic position would agree with optimism that we have made some meaningful strides, but it would also agree with some aspects of pessimism in recognizing that we still have a long, long way to go.”

Dr. King was assassinated just shy of a full three months later on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.