Martin Luther King Jr. Day

The Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said in his last sermon, “All of you are equal. All men, whatever nation or tribe they belong to, and whatever station in life they may hold, are equal…an Arab possesses no superiority over the non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab over an Arab.” This quote defined the crux of humanity 1400 years ago. As an American Muslim, I am reminded of these words every year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Everyone is excited for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but some people don’t know this holiday very well. And some others don’t even know Martin Luther King Jr. Here is the story.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who at a young age lived the words segregation and discrimination. At age 6 one of his white friends said that his family was not going to allow him to play with Martin anymore. The reason was because they were going to start having segregated schools. Later in his life, there was a law stating that all colored people had to sit in the back of the bus and if a white person came they had to either stand or get off of the bus. Rosa Parks stood up to this law and was arrested. This is when Martin Luther King Jr. led the bus boycott. This boycott meant that all colored skin people would not ride the bus at all and they would walk to their destination no matter how far it was.

In 1963 in Birmingham Alabama, King was arrested with many of his followers many of whom were just school children. King wrote a letter trying to tell them why he was doing this, and it read: You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”

I think Martin Luther King Jr. Day reminds us how lucky we are to have had such wonderful people in history to make our world beautiful and safer than what it was at first. This day makes me think back and thank those who thought that their children could have a better tomorrow, and now, I think we do.

By Elham Mahmood