Thoughts on MLK, the 19th Amendment and Voting

Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 86 on January 15, 2015. In his honor, each year at this time, I try to read his “I Have A Dream Speech” given August 28, 1963.

https://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

I was talking to a junior high teacher friend of mine and asked her how much students knew about Martin Luther King, Jr. I looked up a quiz that would be good for students to take on his birthday.

https://www.factmonster.com/quiz…/martinlutherkingkids/1.html

Voting rights was so important to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s message. I just saw this article on the women’s suffrage movement that on “Jan. 12, 1915 [100 years ago], Congress overwhelmingly denied [women] the right to cast a ballot alongside her fellow man.” There are many sad quotes in this article but the one that was inspiring for the ages was from Congress. Rep. Melville Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican, “I believe in woman suffrage, because I believe in democracy.”

https://mashable.com/20…/…/10/womens-suffrage-19th-amendment/

I then took a quiz on the women’s suffrage movement.

https://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/suffrage/quiz/index.asp

This article encouraged me to send in my local mail-in-ballot for Jan 27th. We all need to remember the struggle of the women’s suffrage movement and the civil rights movement. We must not take our right to vote for granted. The sad fact is that turnout of the voting-eligible population was just 36.4% in 2014 (United States Elections Project, Dr. Michael McDonald at the University of Florida). We should do better.

I know I will not be popular with students (or teachers) out there but rather than giving the day off on Monday so kids lose the opportunity to be better educated and better citizens, they should stay in school and learn about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his contribution to our country, society and culture - so we can "live in a nation where [we] will not be judged by the color of [our] skin, but by the content of [our] character." Martin Luther King, Jr. paraphrased

Here is a video on encouraging people to vote. Unfortunately, it was not effective - 36% is horrible!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOp0lpXtqN4

I think that the best reason to vote is that it makes you a more engaged and thoughtful citizen.

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday remembrance, we need to remember what he did for our country. He fought for freedom with words and not with violence or hatred. As he stated: “In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

Remember that women had to work so hard for so many years to gain the right to vote. By voting and treating each person with dignity, we promote freedom and “When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" Martin Luther King, Jr.