This is a column about Martin Luther King’s other dream. His most famous dream, of course, is the one he articulated at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. It was a vision of racial amity so frightening that people killed to keep it from coming true. Five decades later, it’s so broadly accepted that even those […]
Martin Luther King Jr
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Oxford Hills
Civil rights film includes Oxford man
OXFORD — In 1964, the Rev. Bill England was a young chaplain at Boston University, a husband and father, when he traveled down to St. Augustine, Florida, to advise and protect college students who’d gathered there to promote civil rights. England would be badly beaten by Ku Klux Klan supporters. He would be thrown in […]
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Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Radicalism encouraged at MLK service at Bates
LEWISTON — People of all faiths and backgrounds braved the weather to attend the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. interfaith service Sunday evening at Gomes Chapel, where attendees were encouraged to become more radical. In an opening musical offering, Divyamaan Sahoo and Duncan Reehl played “Strange Fruit,” a song written by Jewish teacher Abel […]
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Leonard Pitts: Martin Luther King Jr. legacy up for sale
“I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.” — Martin Luther King, Jr., Feb. 4, 1968 Maybe we should take up an offering. Obviously, the heirs of Martin Luther King Jr. are […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, The Franklin Journal
Reporter’s notebook: Speaking ‘in the 2nd whitest state, to white men playing jazz’
Organizers of Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Bates College tried to get historian Gary Younge to speak at last year’s MLK Day, but there was a scheduling conflict. Younge, who writes for the British newspaper “The Guardian,” was covering Barack Obama’s inauguration. This year, Younge was at Bates, and said he was grateful for […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Bethel, Oxford Hills
Maine artist speaks to Gould students on MLK and other renowned ‘truth-tellers’
BETHEL — Portrait painter Robert Shetterly spoke at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day program Monday at Gould Academy of other “truth-tellers” who had an impact on promoting social, environmental and economic fairness. The presentation by the Brooksville resident focused on his portrait series titled “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” The collection consists of citizens […]
Posted inFranklin, The Franklin Journal
Homelessness focus of Martin Luther King Jr. service in Farmington
FARMINGTON — The annual service remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be held at noon Monday, Jan. 20, at Henderson Memorial Baptist Church at Main and Academy streets. As a minister and civil rights leader, Martin sought justice for people of all races and economic classes. The service this year will focus on rural […]
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Leonard Pitts: Where do we go from here? We go to work
WASHINGTON — Fifty years later. They came from as near as Baltimore, and as far as Tokyo. They came despite swampy heat and intermittent rain. They came braving heat exhaustion to stand in endless lines before the Secret Service checkpoints. They came in memory of lost loved ones. They came in recognition of ongoing struggle. […]