Dr. King and the struggle to save the soul of America - Joe R. Hicks - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Keynote Address
"This great American leader believed the nation's historic treatment of black Americans shamed the Constitution and threatened the very soul of his nation. Black Americans had endured the horror of slavery, the indignities of Jim Crow laws, and suffered unspeakable racial violence. As a believer in the concept of redemption, Dr. King had come to believe that White Americans had also been debased by the effects of white supremacist beliefs – therefore also in need of freedom from a debilitating system of racial apartheid. King and other remarkable civil rights-era figures – men as well as women, blacks as well as many courageous whites - set about the task of freeing the nation from its brutal racial legacy. It has been a long journey from the earliest Freedom Rides deep into the heart of the South, the brutality on the Selma Bridge, the use of fire hoses and police dogs on protesters in Birmingham, to the historic passage of the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts, the painful process of desegregation, and the election of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president. We've been a witness to racial progress that a young Dr. King could only have dreamed of. However, what have been the lasting effects of this struggle to save America from itself - and has the nation's soul been saved? Has the nation transcended its ugly past? And, would Dr. King be pleased with the legacy of his movement to save America?"
For more than 30 years, Joe Hicks has been an active figure in local and national issues related to civil rights and intergroup relations. Currently Vice President of Community Advocates, Inc. he formerly served as Executive Director of the L.A. City Human Relations Commission, under Mayor Richard Riordan; Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Multi-Cultural Collaborative, which served as an umbrella group for a diverse group of community-based leaders; and Executive Director of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the well-known civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King, Jr. His comments and opinion articles have appeared in local, national and international media. Hicks is currently writing a book that chronicles his 30-year journey across the nation's racial and political landscape.
Lunch is provided. RSVP required to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MLKJoeHicksLecture