PBS高端访谈:50年已逝 马丁·路德·金遗产仍旧鲜活(在线收听

JUDY WOODRUFF: On April 4, 1968, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. His death literally changed the world. We begin our coverage with a look back at Dr. King's legacy and why, 50 years later, it is still a work in progress. Three generations retraced the steps of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. this week on U.S. Highway 61. It was here in Memphis that the civil rights leader delivered his 1968 mountaintop speech.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Civil Rights Leader: I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

JUDY WOODRUFF: He arrived in Memphis in early April that year to support the striking sanitation workers, amidst planning what was to be a massive presence in the nation's capital the so-called Poor People's Campaign. But he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4. What followed instead was a reckoning. The riots after the King assassination, also known as the Holy Week Uprising, represented the greatest wave of social unrest the United States had experienced since the Civil War. In the years preceding his death, the Baptist minister used his well-known tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience. King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and, in 1962, as the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, launched an unsuccessful campaign against segregation in Albany, Georgia. He helped organize the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama.

Then came the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: I have a dream that one day, this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, and took the movement to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition to poverty and the Vietnam War. As this happened, King's popularity began to wane, after he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He began to lose momentum as he moved attention from civil rights in the South to tackling segregation and poverty in the North. A 1966 Gallup poll found nearly seven in 10 Americans viewed King unfavorably. Today, people honored King's sacrifice at the memorial dedicated to him in Washington, hoping to connect his message to today's struggles. Around the country, there are all sorts of reminders of his work, and hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor. And children everywhere read and reenact King's "I Have a Dream" speech every MLK Day, a federal holiday by a vote of Congress, and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.

STUDENT: Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But it's the deeds, the actual living out of his legacy that 9-year-old Yolanda King addressed at the recent March For Our Lives gun control rally in Washington. The granddaughter of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King had a call to action of her own.

YOLANDA KING, Granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr.: My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that enough is enough.

YOLANDA KING: And that this should be a gun-free world, period.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Yet King's dream are still largely unfulfilled. According to a new Associated Press poll, just over half of all Americans, including 79 percent of blacks and 44 percent of whites, said African-Americans continue to face disadvantages to getting ahead. This week's events were intended try to bear witness to the words of Martin Luther King, and maybe help fulfill more of his vision. King himself laid out in a 1968 sermon, which came to be known as the Drum Major Instinct, how he would like to be remembered. He spoke then at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta:

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: Yes, if want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.

I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.

茱蒂·伍德瑞夫:1968年4月4日,尊敬的马丁·路德·金在田纳西州孟菲斯一个旅馆的阳台上遭到枪杀。他的死真正改变了世界。报道伊始,我们首先来回顾一下金博士的遗产,以及为什么50年后,他的抗争仍在继续。本周老少三代在美国61号公路重溯马丁·路德·金的足迹。1968年,民权领袖在孟菲斯发表了他的顶峰演讲。

马丁·路德·金,民权领袖:我看到了应许之地。我可能不会和你一起到达那里,但我想让你知道今晚我们作为一个民族,将会到达应许之地。

朱迪·伍德瑞夫:他于今年四月初抵达孟菲斯,支持环卫工人罢工,当时他正计划在首都举行大规模游行,即所谓“穷人运动”。 但他于4月4日被詹姆斯·厄尔·雷伊暗杀。接下来是取而代之的思考。马丁·路德·金遇刺后引发骚乱,此次骚乱也被称为“圣周起义”,是美国内战以来所经历的最为严重的社会动荡。他逝世前的头几年里,浸礼牧师使用了他著名的非暴力和不服从的策略。1955年,金领导了蒙哥马利汽车联合抵制,1962年,作为南方基督教领袖会议的首脑,他在格鲁吉亚奥尔巴尼,发动了一场反对种族隔离的运动,但未获成功。1963年,他协助组织了亚拉巴马州伯明翰的非暴力抗议活动。随后,1963年3月,在华盛顿,他发表了著名演说《我有一个梦想》。

马丁·路德·金:我梦想有一天,这个国家会崛起,实现其信条的真谛。我们认为这些真理不言而喻,人人生而平等。

茱蒂·伍德瑞夫:1965年,他帮助组织了塞尔马-蒙大拿和平大进军,并发展到芝加哥,反对“居住隔离”。在他生命的最后几年里,他扩大了重点,将反对贫穷以及反对越南战争囊括其中。随着这一事件的发生,在1964年获得诺贝尔和平奖后,金的声望开始下降。随着他将注意力他将注意力从南方民权问题转移到北境,解决那里的种族隔离以及贫困问题,他开始丧失势头。1966年,盖洛普民意测验发现,美国人中,金在美国人中的不支持率接近七成。今天,人们在华盛顿纪念碑缅怀他,希望将他的话与当今的斗争联系起来。在全国各地,他的贡献被世人铭记,美国数以百计的街道重新命名,以他为荣。各地的孩子们在“马丁路德金纪念日”阅读并重演它的演讲——《我有一个梦想》。“马丁路德金纪念日”是一个联邦假日,由国会投票产生,并于1983年,由罗纳德·里根总统签署,写入律法。

学生:现在是实现民主承诺的时候了。现在要从种族隔离黑暗荒凉的山谷走出,走向阳光明媚的种族正义之路。

茱蒂·伍德瑞夫:近日在华盛顿,9岁的尤兰达在“生命游行”抢控集会上发表言论,她提到了路德·金的事迹和他留下的遗产。马丁·路德·金的孙女,科丽塔·斯科特·金行动了起来。

尤兰达·金,马丁·路德·金的孙女:我的祖父有一个梦想,他的四个孩子不会因他们的肤色而宿命终生,他们的个人特质将决定一切。这就是我的梦想。

尤兰达·金:这里应该是一个没有枪支的世界。

茱蒂·伍德瑞夫:但是金的梦想仍然远未实现。根据美联社的一份最新调查显示,认为非洲裔美国人在发展中仍面临劣势的美国人超过一半,这其中包括79%的黑人以及44%的白人。本周的事件试图见证马丁·路德·金的话,也许这有助于实现他更多的理想。1968年,金亲自设了布道,这后来被称为 Drum Major Instinct,他是多么希望被人们记住。随后他在亚特兰大的埃比尼泽浸信会上说:

马丁·路德·金:是的,如果说我具有成为领袖的本能,那么就请说我是一个倡导正义天生领袖。说我是一个倡导和平天生领袖。说我是一个倡导正直天生领袖。所有其他肤浅的事情都无关紧要。我没有钱留给后人。美好奢侈的东西也不会留下。但我只想留下一个忠诚的生命。

  原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/pbs/sh/500652.html