life:

Happy Birthday Martin Luther King Jr.

Pictured: Among his landmark early addresses, King’s speech that day, known as “Give Us the Ballot,” urged President Eisenhower and members of Congress to protect the most basic rights of democracy for all American citizens:

“We come humbly to say to the men in the forefront of our government that the civil rights issue is not an ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians of the status quo,” King said in his powerful, rich preacher’s voice. “It is rather an eternal moral issue which may well determine the destiny of our nation…. The hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now, before it is too late.”

(see more — NEVER SEEN: MLK & the Freedom Rides)