Subject
title
Proclamation Declaring January 20, 2025, as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Rockville, Maryland
end
Department
City Clerk/Director of Council Operations Office
Recommendation
Staff recommends Mayor and Council read and approve the proclamation, and present it to Linda Plummer, President, Dr. Carolyn Coleman, 1st Vice-President, and Cherri Branson, Esq., 2nd Vice-President of the Montgomery County Branch of the NAACP.
Discussion
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (born Michael Luther King Jr., January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. Dr. King supported and advanced the civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination.
As a black church leader, Dr. King participated and lead marches for the right to vote, fair and equal wage rights desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights afforded to other people. In 1963, Dr. King was one of the leaders and organizers of the “March on Washington,” where he delivered his most famous speech, “I Have a Dream.” Dr. King helped to organized two of the three Selma to Montgomery marches during the Selma voting rights movement.
The civil rights movement achieved significant legislative wins including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. There were several dramatic and violent standoffs with segregationist authorities during these turbulent times.
Dr. King was jailed multiple times and became a target of constant surveillance, threats and harassment by J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
On October 14, 1964, it was announced that that Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for working to end racial inequality through nonviolent resistance.
On April 4, 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Motel.
Dr. King was posthumously awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. was dedicated in 2011. Source: Wikipedia.
Mayor and Council History
This is the first time Mayor and Council have presented this proclamation.