The Month-long commemoration of the confirmable Historical perspectives of Black History and slavery undertaken by this columnist is incomplete without the mention of the stern and stiff resistance of African men and women through the ages. We remember in histrionic silence the timeless screams of our brothers and sisters who committed suicide rather than to be enslaved. The dauntless courage of those who provoked death from the scourging of the Whiteman stiffens our backbones. The keening ululation of mothers who killed their newborn in painful sacrifice to prevent them from being enslaved echoes in our hearts. Later still, resistance movements were formed and many gave their lives for a better tomorrow for the African. These courageous and influential people on the Continent and in the Diaspora made a mark. Their personal sacrifices seared the issues of Slavery, Human Rights, Human Suffrage, African Emancipation and Democracy into the consciousness of people worldwide. The unrecanted conflagration and immolation of African Civilizations and the destruction of the African continent by the Western World ceased only through their efforts. Democracy reigns in the West today because of these peoples’ uncompromising stands. We will name a few of them but focus on the one man whose outstanding contribution to African Emancipation caused the United States Government to honor him with a National Holiday. Before we come to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. we must make mention of his comrades-in-arms and predecessors whose efforts conjointly with his, made the legislated equality of Whites and Blacks in the United States possible. We will also mention those on the African Continent whose struggle against the oppressive noose of Colonialism stood them out as heroes among their people and marked them out for destruction and elimination in many cases.

In Africa, we remember Ann Zinga, virago and Warrior-Queen of the Matambas whose forty-year warfare prevented the Portuguese from overrunning Angola until after her death in 1663 at the age of 81. Chaka the Zulu, Moshesh, Cetewayo of South Africa, Tippoo Tib Zanzibar were kings whose name struck fear into the hearts of White expeditions. Behanzin, Prempeh and Osei Tutu held sway on the West Coast of Africa. In Northern Africa there were Kafur, Egyptian ruler, Yakub al-Mansur, Sonni Ali, Askia the Great, Abu Hassan Ali, Mohammed al Mahdi, of antiquity. More recently, African heroes include Ibrahim Abatcha, Chadian Politician and Freedom fighter who led many guerilla attacks against the Colonialist government Forces and died in 1968 during one such Campaign. Sir Kofo Abayomi. Usman dan Fodio, Asafu-Adjaye, Col Boumedienne, President Ben Bella, Alh Alhassan Dantata, The Casely Hayfords, Sultan Muhammadu Bello, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Nana of the Itsekiri, Christopher Sapara-Williams, Samora Machel, Sir Herbert Macaulay, Samuel Adjai Crowther etc.

In the United States of America, there were three types of resistance. Revolts and mutinies, Strikes and Civil Rights Marches. Among the notable Africans who fought for include Ida B. Wells Barnett, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, The Grimke family, Nat Turner, John Brown, Crispus Attucks, Harriet Turner, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, Arthur Schomburg, George Washington Carver, A. Phillip Randolph, Whitney M. Young jr. Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Madame C.J. Walker, Charles R. Drew, Louis Farrakhan, Colin Powell and many others. Black History Commemoration Month is incomplete without the mention of their struggles. Incontestably, the greatest of them all was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68). Inspired by the belief that love and peaceful protest could eliminate social injustice, Martin Luther King, Jr., became one of the outstanding black leaders in the United States. He aroused whites and blacks alike to protest racial discrimination, poverty, and war. A champion of nonviolent resistance to oppression, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1964. King had been impressed by the teachings of Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi on nonviolent resistance. King wrote, "I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom." In December 1955, King was chosen to head the Montgomery Improvement Association, formed by the black community to lead a boycott of the segregated city buses. During the boycott, King's home was bombed, but he persuaded his followers to remain nonviolent despite threats to their lives and property. Late in 1956 the United States Supreme Court forced desegregation of the buses " In 1957 King became the youngest recipient of the Spingarn Medal, an award presented annually to an outstanding black person by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1958 King became president of a group later known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), formed to carry on civil-rights activities in the South. King inspired blacks throughout the South to hold peaceful sit-ins and freedom rides to protest segregation. King was jailed in 1963 during a successful campaign to achieve the desegregation of many public facilities in Birmingham, Ala. In a moving appeal, known as the "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he replied to several white clergymen who felt that his efforts were ill timed. 

In 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel peace prize. He regarded it not only as a personal honor but also as an international tribute to the nonviolent civil-rights movement. In 1965, King led a drive to register black voters in Selma, Ala. The drive met with violent resistance. In protest of this treatment, thousands of demonstrators conducted a five-day march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery.

Militant black leaders began to attack his appeals for nonviolence. They accused him of being influenced too much by whites. Government officials criticized his stand on Vietnam. Some black leaders felt that King's statements against war diverted public attention from civil rights. King inspired and planned the Poor People's Campaign, a march on Washington, D.C., in 1968 to dramatize the relationship of poverty to urban violence. But he did not live to take part in it. Early in 1968, he traveled to Memphis, Tenn., to support a strike of poorly paid sanitation workers. There, on April 4, he was assassinated by a sniper, James Earl Ray. King's death shocked the nation and precipitated rioting by blacks in many cities. He was buried in Atlanta under a monument inscribed with the final words of his famous "I Have a Dream" address. Taken from an old slave song, the inscription read: "Free at Last, / Free at Last, / Thank God Almighty, / I'm Free at Last." King's brief career greatly advanced the cause of civil rights in the United States. His efforts spurred the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His energetic personality and persuasive oratory helped unite many blacks in a search for peaceful solutions to racial oppression. Although King's views were challenged by blacks who had lost faith in nonviolence, his belief in the power of nonviolent protest remained strong. His writings include 'Stride Toward Freedom: the Montgomery Story' (1958); 'Strength to Love' (1963); 'Why We Can't Wait' (1964); and 'Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?' (1967).

In 1977, King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his battle against prejudice. In 1986, the United States Congress established a national holiday in King's honor to be observed on the third Monday in January. 

Robot  # 1 | 21.01.2009 05:24

The Inauguration of the first African-American US President isa triumph for Africans all over the world.Barack Obama is afirst generation immigrantfrom Africa.He epitomisesthe "American dream".This is the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr and all the great men of the Civil Rights Movement era on whose shoulders Obama stands as the epitome of African emancipation. First published in THISDAY Newspaper 1998...Read the full article.