*foot notes

This coming Monday would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s 72nd birthday. He was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta. Following the path of his father and grandfather, he entered the Christian ministry. In 1955, he accepted the pastorate of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.

* The Montgomery bus boycott, which King led, started Dec. 1, 1955, in the wake of Rosa Parks’ arrest for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. As the African American boycott of the city bus system continued through the next year, King attracted national attention because of his oratorical skills and personal courage. His home was bombed and he was convicted of conspiring to interfere with the bus system’s operations. But the boycott continued and the Montgomery bus system was desegregated in December 1956 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Alabama’s segregation laws were unconstitutional.

* On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis, one year to the day after he first voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War, saying, “We are taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia or East Harlem.”

* King would often quote poet James Russell Lowell: “Truth forever on the scaffold/ Wrong forever on the throne/Yet that scaffold sways the future . . . “ King once said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.” The motto of Martin Luther King Day is “Make it a day on . . . not a day off.” The Web site https://www.mlkday.org/ offers suggestions for ways to serve your community.

* As part of Palmdale’s Martin Luther King Day celebration, the Gospel Hummingbirds will perform Monday at 6:30 p.m. at Palmdale Playhouse, 38334 10th St. E. The group was nominated for a Grammy in the traditional Soul Gospel category in 1992. $8-$12. (661) 267-5685.