Honoring MLK

This weekend was thoroughly refreshing.  Not only did I get a lot of the work done, but I feel that I got an adequate amount of time to relax and refresh as well.  Considering that next day off from school is over a month away, I'm satisfied with how everything played out this long weekend.

The reason I got this day off was because it's Martin Luther King Day; so I decided to reflect a bit on some rumors I've heard recently.  Rumor #1 is that MLK ripped off a lot of other people's written and oratory work.  Although it may come as a shock, this happens so often today that no one even realizes or cares.  For example, most speeches made by presidents and other important figures are written for the person.  They don't even write it themselves, but end up getting all the credit.  Since MLK was a well-educated man, he had an opportunity to be well informed and probably researched a lot of what others had done before him.  If this is the case, he was just reiterating ideas that had been lost to a new audience.  So regardless where he got the material, his goal of informing and unifying a group of oppressed people was met and that was the goal of his speeches.  Rumor #2 has something about him only preferring white prostitutes.  When I asked said person for further clarification and a source, he couldn't produce one, so I don't know if this is true.  Considering MLK's history though, I would be more surprised if this wasn't made up.  His assassination is proof enough that he had a lot of enemies, and in some respects he still does today.  That being said, MLK isn't perfect either; I'm sure he had his own character flaws and sins hanging above his head.  No one's works, advances or accomplishments are been labelled invalid because of a less-than-perfect life, so why would this apply now?   Alternative, if it is true (either the race aspect or having prostitutes in general), it would certainly drop him a few pegs in my list of respected heroes.  But again, it can't undo what he has done for this nation.

At the end of his life MLK will go down as one of the unifying leaders of the 20th century, who died tragically before his time.  He was a pioneer in civil rights, and was one of the best orators of recent history.  No matter how much dirt people want throw on him, he still will be credited for educating and unifying a country on what it means to demand for your rights in a non-violent matter.  He changed the direction of a nation and ultimately lost his life doing so.

This video is an excerpt of his speech the night before he was assassinated:

And this is collection of different excerpts using a re-make using auto-tune, which sounds cooler than how I just described it: