Why do we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. with a national holiday?
Because it took a century after the Civil War was over to finally officially address the lack of equality that was promised to the descendents of Africa slaves. Dr. King was a leader of the people and even while living became a symbol of all that was wrong with racial relations in America. His death became a rallying point for social and political change.
The turbulent decade of the 60s saw racial tensions boiling over. NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers was shot by a Ku Klux Klan member. Another white supremacist killed four young black girls by bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
And a classically trained pianist named Nina Simone wrote and performed and recorded a song with a dirty word in the title and inflamatory lyrics.
Mississippi Goddam.
“Alabama’s gotten me so upset / Tennessee made me lose my rest / And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam…”
Was she cursing the state of Mississippi? Or was she just so exasperated with the events that she