MY LIFE - Martin Luther King Jr Day weekend

HISTORY - Phil Romano, the New York Cop Who Saved Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life

Just the letter opener might have changed history if Romano had not stopped a panicked onlooker who was reaching to pull it from King’s chest when the cops ran up. Howard told King not to cough or sneeze or even speak as they lifted him onto a chair and began to carry him out through a back exit.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/21/phil-romano-the-new-york-cop-who-saved-martin-luther-king-jr-s-life.html

CULTURE/SOCIETY - What happened after MLK died?

On Thursday, April 4, 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped out onto the balcony of a Memphis hotel and was killed by an assassin's bullet. The story typically ends there, with the slain civil rights leader on the ground, surrounded by blood-stained colleagues left to carry on his vision. Rebecca Burns' new book, Burial for a King, begins that day in Atlanta, as the news passes through restaurants and telephones, from radios and televisions, over symphonies and street corners, and ends as his body is laid in the ground the following Tuesday, April 9. Through enormous research and a careful narrative hand, Burns has crafted this week of history into a vivid, microcosmic moment. Spanning from Auburn Avenue in Atlanta to the mountains of South Vietnam, Burial for a King makes the reverberations of King's life and death feel raw and clear again.

http://clatl.com/atlanta/what-happened-after-mlk-died/Content?oid=2668606

CULTURE/SOCIETY - How Blacks And Whites Remember Martin Luther King Jr.

Dyson explores how blacks and whites have shaped their own different images of the late civil rights leader.

Whites, Dyson writes, “want to see Dr. King as peaceful and clawless, while blacks remember him as flawless, even though he had affairs and depression.”

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/01/21/mlk-book-dyson

ENTERTAINMENT: 'Why?': Remembering Nina Simone's Tribute To The Reverend Martin Luther King

Three days after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, performer Nina Simone and her band played at the Westbury Music Festival on Long Island, N.Y. They performed "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)," a song they had just learned, written by their bass player Gene Taylor in reaction to King's death.

http://www.npr.org/2008/04/06/89418339/why-remembering-nina-simones-tribute-to-the-rev-martin-luther-king-jr

ENTERTAINMENT: Alabama Mahatma: Martin Luther King blues

These are indeed rare songs. And we should all be very grateful to Guido for his fantastic digging and research to put this collection together. From raging gospel shouts, to classic Chicago blues and everything in between, this music is a reminder of just why Martin Luther King Jr. will always be a part of African American identity. Like the tales that grew up around the figures of Jesus and Buddha and Muhammad, these songs not only preserve and re-tell history but are an act of the creation of a community’s history.

Happy Birthday, Martin!

http://washermansdog-ajnabi.blogspot.com/2013/01/alabama-mahatma-martin-luther-king-blues.html

POLITICS: Dr. Martin Luther King assassinated by US govt: King Family civil trial verdict

Dr. Martin Luther King’s family and his personal friend and attorney, William F. Pepper, won a civil trial that found US government agencies guilty in the wrongful death of Martin Luther King. The 1999 trial, King Family versus Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirators, [70] is the only trial ever conducted on the assassination of Dr. King.


http://www.examiner.com/article/dr-martin-luther-king-assassinated-by-us-govt-king-family-civil-trial-verdict

HUMOR: The most ridiculously misguided observances of Martin Luther King Day.

Guess we all have our own way of revering a fallen civil rights pioneer. As the party invites and sale ads below would indicate, one man's solemn observance is another man's extra night to hit the strip club. But a 3-day weekend is a 3-day weekend after all, so if you aren't spending the holiday shopping the sales or sleeping off a hangover, spend some time perusing these wonderfully failed attempts at observing Martin Luther King Day.

http://www.happyplace.com/13372/10-ridiculously-misguided-observances-of-martin-luther-king-day

HISTORY: 17 Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes You Never Hear

While best known for his “I Have a Dream” speech, King's legacy included much more than that.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/17-martin-luther-king-jr-quotes-you-never-hear

SOCIETY/CULTURE: Martin Luther King on nonconformists...

ENTERTAINMENT: 10 Songs Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

This long weekend, millions across America celebrate a man whose contributions to the political sphere of our country are innumerable. And over the years, the musical sphere of America has become filled with songs inspired by or dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now, the Billboard.com staff counts down our favorites among those songs, from the sobriety of U2**'s "MLK" to the unfettered optimism of Springsteen**'s "We Shall Overcome." Happy MLK Day!

http://m.billboard.com/features/10-songs-honoring-dr-martin-luther-king-1004139201.story

HISTORY: 8 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Although King is one of U.S. history's most widely chronicled individuals, there are aspects of his life that are less well-known than the pivotal speeches, the campaigns against Jim Crow city halls from Montgomery in 1955 to Memphis in 1968, and the dalliances that for some, tainted his personal life. King was as complex a figure as exists in our social narrative. He was a man conflicted by his commitment to a movement into which he was drafted against his better judgement and by the overwhelming demands to fulfill the role of human rights spokesperson. He was a husband and father who belonged to a people and a revolution, and the nation's most prominent advocate of nonviolence at a time when violence burned on urban streets, college campuses and in Southeast Asia.

http://www.alternet.org/activism/8-surprising-things-you-didnt-know-about-dr-martin-luther-king-jr