What caused the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
Lee County NAACP president James Muwakkil didn’t heed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call until 32 years after the death of the civil rights leader. He was 8 when King was killed April 4, 1968, in Memphis. Muwakkil says he didn’t embrace King’s importance until he was 40. “Many people in the black community didn’t have TVs then,” he says about life in the late 1960s. “But I remember this one house on Pauldo Street. I saw my mom sitting on the floor in front of the TV and crying. There was a lot of people there watching his funeral. The adults were very quiet, grieving.” The former James Mathis is a late bloomer. “I did not use drugs until my early 20s,” he says about his criminal past. “I didn’t get out of prison until 1996.” Convicted of manslaughter, Muwakkil got his act together behind bars and emerged a changed man. He started the Fort Myers Coalition for Justice and 15 months ago was elected president of the local NAACP chapter. He brings a reasonable approach to race relations in L
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches.[1] A Baptist minister,[2] King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King’s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. By the tim
