VOA常速英语2018--全美纪念民权运动偶像路德金逝世五十周年（在线收听）

US Marks 50 Years Since Civil Rights Icon King’s Assassination

April 9th 1968, the final march of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior.Just a few days earlier on the 4th of April,James Earl Ray-the man later convicted of the shooting assassinated King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee.More than 100,000 people lined the streets of Atlanta-the place of King’s birth as two mules pulled a simple farm wagon carrying his body.King’s funeral drew famous faces of the era, including Senator Robert Kennedy, future US President-Richard Nixon and fellow civil rights activist-the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

1968年4月9日，马丁·路德·金牧师的最后一次游行。就在4月4日早些时候，詹姆斯·艾尔·雷在田纳西州孟菲斯暗杀了洛林汽车旅馆阳台上的路德·金，其暗杀罪名成立。十多万人在亚特兰大的街道排队，也就是路德·金出生的地方，他们把金的遗体放在一个简单的农用货车上，用两个骡子拉着。金的葬礼吸引了很多当时有名的人物参加，其中包括参议员罗伯特·肯尼迪，未来的美国总统理查德·尼克松和同胞维权活动家杰西·杰克逊牧师。

Jackson spoke with VOA in August 2011 during the dedication of King’s Memorial in Washington.“He’s really as a symbol of power and justice and peace and reconciliation, but we had to win some mighty battles to get the reconciliation. I mean the Battle of Montgomery involved confrontation and endurance through a later one-day struggle.”The battles of Alabama were for the voting rights denied blacks in many parts of the American South.It was followed by more police violence against civilians in the city of Selma in what came to be known as “Bloody Sunday”.Congressman John Lewis was one of the leaders of the student protests.“They came toward us, beating us with nightsticks, trampling us with horses, releasing tear gas. Was hit in the head by a trooper with a night stick. I had a concussion at the brain.”“I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death.”The televised violence sparked a national outcry.

2011年8月，杰克逊在华盛顿的路德·金纪念堂献礼上与美国之音节目这样说。“他真的是权力与正义，和平与和解的象征，但我们必须先打赢一些大的战斗才能实现和解。我的意思是，通过一天的战斗，蒙哥马利之战中包含着对抗也有忍耐。”阿拉巴马州的战斗是为了帮助美国南部许多地区的黑人赢得投票权。不久后，更多的警察在塞尔玛市暴力对抗平民，人们称之为“血色星期日”。众议员约翰·刘易斯是学生抗议活动的领导人之一。“他们走向我们，用夜槌击打我们，用马践踏我们，释放催泪瓦斯。我被一名夜班骑兵击中头部，脑部震荡。”“我以为我会死。我以为我看到了死亡。”暴力事件被报道后引发了全国范围的强烈抗议。

A few days later, a court order gave king permission to lead tens of thousands of demonstrators to march from Selma to Alabama’s capital Montgomery.“King junior came back to visit me in my hospital room and said, ‘John, don’t worry. We will make it from Stallman to Montgomery, and the Voting Rights Act will be passed.” A year after US President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, King’s strategy of peaceful protests led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.“Well, he believed in the legal process, he taught litigation alone was too slow. You need in litigation, demonstration and legislation. He believed in mass action is to transform the mass is marching and the change of culture that, that drove us for the march.”The most famous was the 1963 march on Washington.

几天后，法院允许金带领成千上万的示威者从阿拉巴马州的首都蒙哥马利游行到塞尔玛。“金到我的病房看望我说，约翰，别担心。我们将从斯托曼游行到到蒙哥马利，《投票权法案》也会通过的。”《民权法案》签署的第二年，迫于金的和平示威压力，美国总统林登·约翰逊不得不签署了《投票权法案》。“嗯，金相信法律程序，他说纯粹依靠诉讼耗时太长了。你需要诉讼，需要示威游行，也需要立法。他相信大规模行动是去促进人们现在努力去完成的事情，是去改变驱使人们去游行的那种文化。其中最有名的算得上1963年华盛顿的游行了。

An estimated quarter of a million people gathered at the National Mall to hear King’s iconic speech.It was a dream of freedom and equality in a country that was built on the backs of the enslaved.New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell was sent to Memphis to shadow King.“What was on King’s mind and what he wanted to talk to me about was what he called the Poor People’s Campaign. He said he was gonna gather poor people from all around the country, bring them to Washington, and he was going to stop the business of the government of the United States until it dealt with the issue of poverty particularly pertaining to black people.”

据估计，约有25万人聚集在国家广场聆听金标志性的演讲。这是一个国家有关自由和平等的梦想，这是建立在奴役背后的梦想。纽约时报记者厄尔·考德威尔被送到孟菲斯市去跟踪金。“金脑里想的和他想要和我说的都是‘穷人运动’”。他说他要把全国的穷人都召集起来，带他们到华盛顿去。而且他会阻止美国政府处理事务，直到政府解决和黑人有关的贫困问题。”

Passage of the Civil Rights Act forced legal change in the 1960s, but activists say real change is often slow.“We are a different but a better nation today in the sense that the barbaric laws and in some civil laws of racial apartheid have ended, so that the social gaps have closed but the economic gaps, they’re free but less equal.”King’s legacy of peaceful protest lives on most recently at the March for our lives rally in Washington.Organizers of the gun-control march on Washington estimated crowds of about 800,000, among them King’s granddaughter.My grandfather had dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color, their skin but by the content of their character.Before his assassination in 1968 King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent campaign for equality.Today more than 100 schools and over 900 streets in the United States bear his name.

在20世纪60年代《民权法案》就已经带来了法律上的改变，但是活动家认为真正的改变往往是缓慢的。“如今，我们国家变得更好了，野蛮的法律和民法中的一些种族隔离制度已经不存在了，所以人们社会地位上平等了，但经济地位上虽自由却仍然不平等。”金和平抗议的成果在最近华盛顿的游行中也有体现，这个游行旨在提高人们的生活安全水平。据估计，华盛顿的枪支管制游行运动越有80万人，其中就有金的孙女。我的祖父有一个梦想，希望人们评判他的四个孩子的时候，不是通过肤色，而是通过他们的品质。在1968年金被暗杀前，因为他领导的非暴力的平等运动，他被授予诺贝尔和平奖。如今，美国100多所学校、900多条街道都以他的名字命名。