ANALYSIS

WASHINGTON — Standing beneath the looming presence of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., President Barack Obama carved out his own version of Black leadership with a message of racial unity.

A sense of inescapable Blackness surrounded Sunday’s dedication ceremony for the King memorial. The 30-foot-tall granite likeness is the first on the National Mall to honor an African American, joining memorials for two white presidents who owned slaves and a third who ended such bondage.

Obama responded by stirring the loyalty of his restive Black base while reaching to include all Americans, linking himself to King’s “constant insistence on the oneness of man” and the slain leader’s efforts to help not just Black people, but all those in need.

He used the colorblind suggestion that Americans look at the hard times King conquered, and understand the challenge of navigating the troubles of today.

“At this moment, when our politics appear so sharply polarized, and faith in our institutions so greatly diminished, we need more than ever to take heed of Dr. King’s teachings,” Obama said. “He calls on us to stand in the other person’s shoes, to see through their eyes, to understand their pain.”

At times, it seemed as if the shoes to which Obama alluded were his.

He drew subtle parallels between himself and the man in stone behind him, the “Black preacher with no official rank or title” who helped shape “an America that is far more fair and more free and more just” than it was in 1963, when King delivered his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech on that same Mall.

“Even after rising to prominence, even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King was vilified by many ... He was even attacked by his own people,” Obama said.

The Black Nobel Peace Prize winner, who never held elected office, as seen by the Black Nobel Peace Prize winner elected to the highest office in the land.

“We are right to savor that slow but certain progress,” Obama said. “... And yet it is also important on this day to remind ourselves that such progress did not come easily; that Dr. King’s faith was hard won; that it sprung out of a harsh reality and some bitter disappointments.”

Unlike his other infrequent remarks on race, which were mostly responding to problems, Obama set his own terms on Sunday.

He did not explore America’s racial dynamics or cite lingering racial barriers, as he did during the 2008 campaign to counteract remarks by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Nor did he chide his Black critics, as he did in a speech before the Congressional Black Caucus last month.

Fifty-nine words into Sunday’s remarks, Obama uttered the word “Black” — something his African-American critics have hungered for him to do more often. He called out the names of deceased movement luminaries such as Rosa Parks, Dorothy Height and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. He let his body language speak, too, rocking pensively to Aretha Franklin’s stirring performance of “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” and linking arms with his wife and the vice president to sing “We Shall Overcome.”

In the process, he satisfied at least one of his strongest Black critics.

“He was sho’ nuff Black,” said Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown professor who in the past has said that Obama “runs from race like a Black man runs from a cop.”

“He dipped down into the resourceful pool of Black oratory, soared high, and expressed the courage of Blackness against the bastion of white supremacy and injustice and transcended color to join us all together,” Dyson said after the speech.

Rep. John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with King, said Obama did with King’s memory “exactly what I hoped he would do.”

King “truly believed in the dignity of all human beings. It didn’t matter if you were Black, white, Latino, Native American,” Lewis said.

Along with many other speakers at Sunday’s ceremony, Lewis noted that at the time of King’s assassination, he was working to build a multiracial coalition that would bring a “poor people’s campaign” to the National Mall.

“There was a parallel (in Obama’s speech) with what he’s going through now, too,” Lewis said. “When President Obama was running for office there was a low moment in his campaign, and he said, ‘I have to go back to my authentic self.’ I think what we saw here was authentic Obama. It was very powerful.”

Powerful without dwelling directly on Black or white, said Colin Powell, the Republican and first Black secretary of state under President George W. Bush.

“This wasn’t a speech about race,” Powell said. “It was a speech about the future of America. He touched all the bases: where we have been, where we are going, where we are now, and where we have to be.”

Not everyone was impressed. David Kairys, a Temple University law professor and civil rights attorney who attended King’s 1963 March on Washington, wished Obama had provided a clear reckoning of remaining racial problems.

“This specific occasion is about the struggle against racial oppression,” Kairys said, then mentioned that Black unemployment is twice the white rate and Blacks still suffer disproportionately from many social ills.

“We eliminated the worst forms of explicit racism and it became taboo to be racist, but the results of segregation and Jim Crow were basically left in place and just continued over the last 40 or 50 years,” he said. “That’s at least worth some kind of direct comment.”

Yet he understood, in some way, why Obama made that choice: “To be fair, he’s running for re-election. Also, he never told us he was going to be a champion against racial oppression. This (speech) is probably who he really is.”

Most others were more complimentary. Even the conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher, who is determined to defeat the president in 2012, said that the way Obama honored King’s legacy was “brilliant.”

“It was a beautiful, powerful message about what can be achieved in this country,” Gallagher said. “I really appreciate the fact that he acknowledged as a Black man how much progress we’ve made. ... And it kills me to say this, because I think Obama is wrecking the country.”

Paul and Carol Cooper, a white retired couple from Kingston, N.Y., heard King’s “Dream” speech in person in 1963. Before Sunday’s speech, they had hoped Obama would discuss the work still undone to fulfill King’s dream.

On Sunday, Paul Cooper called Obama’s remarks a “classic.”

“Obama showed us repeatedly,” he said, “that King belongs not merely to Black people, but to the whole country.” — (AP)

When the National Assessment of Educational Progress — commonly referred to as “The Nation’s Report Card” — was administered to 12,000 high school seniors last year, it became clear that when it comes to teaching the civil rights movement in America’s classrooms, there is a terrible disconnect.

Asked to describe the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas — which made it illegal to segregate schools — just two percent of the students were able to sufficiently answer the question.

A new study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, “Teaching the Movement,” found this type of ignorance rampant in schools across America. The study gives 35 states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, failing grades when it comes to teaching students about the Civil Rights Movement. The civil rights movement period is generally recognized to be from 1954 up to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

“An educated populace must be taught basics about American history,” said civil rights activist and former center president Julian Bond, in his preface to the report. ”One of these basics is the civil rights movement, a nonviolent revolution as important as the first American Revolution. It is a history that continues to shape the America we all live in today.”

“Schools across the entire state teach civil rights in detail,” said Tim Heller, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Education. “It has always been an area of emphasis in curriculums across Pennsylvania.”

In the SPLC’s evaluation, states were given a grade of F if they required less than 20 percent of the content recommended by the SPLC based on textbooks, existing curriculum and expert opinion. As an example, just 12 states require their schools to teach about Rosa Parks, largely viewed as the “Mother of the movement” for her 1955 refusal to sit in the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus.

Pennsylvania scored 0; New Jersey notched 15 percent.

To receive and A, a state had to include at least 60 percent of the SPLC recommended content.  Alabama, with 70 percent, received the highest grade. Also receiving an A were New York and Illinois, with scores of 65 percent and 64 percent, respectively.

In Philadelphia, a course in African American history, including the civil rights movement, is a graduation requirement.

This left some Pennsylvanians puzzled.

“It has been a part of our curriculum for a long time,” said School District of Philadelphia spokesperson Fernando Gallard. Gallard said that the school district’s policy of making the study of the civil rights movement mandatory has been in place for years, adding that he believed that Philadelphia was, for a long time, “the only large district” in the country where it was mandatory for graduation.

In New Jersey, a 2002 state law made it mandatory for African American history to be a part of the social studies curriculum. From the law sprang the Amistad Commission, which provides and promotes an African-American history curriculum, related teaching resources, professional developmental opportunities and grants.

“For too many students, their civil rights education boils down to two people and four words: Rosa Parks, Dr. King and ‘I have a dream,’” said Maureen Costello, SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance director. “When 43 states adopted Common Core Standards in English and math, they affirmed that rigorous standards were necessary for achievement. By having weak or non-existent standards for history, particularly for the civil rights movement, they are saying loud and clear that it isn’t something students need to learn.”

The SPLC said it issued the report to encourage a national conversation about the importance of teaching the civil rights movement. The report calls for states to include civil rights education in K-12 history and social studies curricula. It urges colleges and other organizations that train teachers to ensure that they are well prepared to teach it.

The report found that students in regions where the movement took place knew the most about the movement. It also determined that physical distance from the region where the movement took place – the south – also influenced the way it was taught.

“Region and proximity to the movement mean a lot,” Costello said.

Tribune staff writer John N. Mitchell can be reached at (215)-893-5745 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

President Barack Obama has a problem. It is not his vision for change or the soaring unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. It is neither the dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan nor the growing apathy within his Democratic party. Unfortunately, he inherited some of these challenges from the previous administration. His problem? How does he marry audacious leadership and hope while facing fierce opposition and disrespect?

During the summer, the president sought the middle ground, trying to appeal to independent voters. At first glance, this strategy appeared to be an excellent one for a 2012 re-election: to stay above the fray and reaffirm to independents that he is not an “angry” or “reactionary” Black man, and that he is above the disrespect and childish political antics of John Boehner, Eric Cantor and rest of the Republican Party.

Indeed, the primary challenge facing Obama is contending with the forces who want to gain control of the Oval Office and who are willing to stop at nothing to apprehend it — even if it means bringing the U.S. financial market unnecessarily to her knees.

In order to save America, and even his presidency, the president must emerge as the master strategist to combat forces that would muddy the waters between allies and foes, and stir deleterious and counterproductive debate amongst his voting base that is designed to distract, discourage, dissuade, and ultimately defeat him.

To be victorious, Obama must redouble his efforts to maintain focus and to become what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “…not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.”

Please understand: I enthusiastically support President Barack Obama. In 2008, I organized Clergy for Change, the first interfaith and interracial breakfast in Philadelphia to support and elect then Senator Obama. My call for leadership should not be aligned with the likes of Tavis Smiley or Cornel West.

However, when 14 million Americans are unemployed, the housing market is in a tailspin, the economy is on the brink of a double-dip recession and your most loyal base is feeling the most financial pain, we need our president to dare to be our most audacious leader.

On Thursday night, delivering his jobs speech in the House chamber — a venue used only three times within the past 20 years except for the State of Union addresses — President Obama took a crucial step in bold and daring leadership.

Principally, the president exhorted Congress to pass a jobs bill that would:

— Cut the payroll tax and put more money in the pockets of working and middle class Americans, saving families an average of $1,500 a year;

— Provide an additional tax cut to any business that hires or increases wages;

— Extend jobless benefits to the unemployed, with special emphasis on those out of work at least six months and those in low-income neighborhoods.

— Spend $140 billion to save and create jobs to repair deteriorating schools and rebuild roads, railways, and airports.

President Obama is a gifted politician. He is smart, attentively listens and knows how to take our nation’s challenges and develop them into a clear, bipartisan vision. While he is a great visionary, he must do more than cast vision. He must be guided by his convictions rather than allow his enemies to cast him as one who occasionally acquiesces or abdicates his leadership.

The security of America and yes, even the presidency, dangles at the end of a very short rope. We have less than 14 months before next year’s presidential election. America is in desperate need of our president to rise again as the bold, thoughtful, prayerful, no holds barred people’s champion and leader we know him to be.

At the end of the day, leaders are not judged solely on their poll numbers, but rather their principles. And while poll numbers cannot be ignored, they should never be the compass guiding the leader. We are depending upon this great leader to change this nation and set it on the right course again. Will President Obama emerge as the courageous, audacious leader for these extraordinary times? I believe he will because that’s what great, audacious leaders do.

As always, keep the faith.

The Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson is the senior pastor of the Bright Hope Baptist Church.

Standing outside a residential building in London’s West Kingston section recently, Omowale Rupert revealed some intriguing facts to a visitor about the last years of the life of legendary Black activist Marcus Garvey.

The Jamaican-born visionary Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association — the Harlem USA based organization that remains the largest mass movement among Blacks in history.

During the early 1920s, UNIA membership soared beyond four million across the U.S. and numerous countries around the world.

Garvey, famous for phrases like “Africa-for-Africans,” pushed economic development for empowering Blacks along with inspiring pride through Black-is-Beautiful during an era when violent segregation stalked America and brutal European colonialism exploited most of the Black world.

The still-operating UNIA branch building in North Philadelphia is a Pennsylvania certified historic site.

Rupert asked the visitor to cross the small street where they stood in front of the last UNIA office used by Garvey, who died in London in 1940.

Rupert said he had something curious to show about that building, No. 2 Beaumont Crescent.

“Look at the drain pipes,” directed Rupert, a member of the Marcus Garvey Organizing Committee of London’s Pan-African Society Community Forum.

“See how all the drain pipes on houses here come straight down the far left side of the buildings but the drain piping on the Garvey office house goes from the left side across the house to the right side,” noted the London-born Rupert, whose parents immigrated to England from the Caribbean island of Dominica.

“Someone put that drain pipe there purposefully to block the plaque honoring this Garvey office that people put up in August 1987, the 100th anniversary of Garvey’s birth. That drain pipe wasn’t there in 1987 when people placed that plaque. It shows you how racism operates.”

While that retro-fitted drain pipe does obscure the weathered 1987 plaque on No. 2 Beaumont Crescent, about two months ago, some Garvey supporters in London erected a new blue plaque with silver lettering on the right side of the front door commemorating the location.

In August when Londoners erected that new plaque on the old Garvey office, one mean-spirited Obama administration minion indignantly denied a request for a posthumous pardon for Garvey, whom the U.S. government falsely convicted in 1923, imprisoned and deported in 1927.

The Obama administration pardon attorney issued his denial on the historically inaccurate assertion that Garvey’s mistreatment by the U.S. government did not constitute a manifest injustice.

Aggravating insult, this minion wrote a letter claiming that pardoning Garvey would be a waste of time and resources since Garvey died ages ago.

When a Black U.S. congressman unsuccessful sought a Garvey pardon in 1987, ambassadors and scholars testified in favor of the man who is a National Hero in Jamaica and whose bust is in the Hall of Heroes at the Organization of American States in D.C.

Jamaica’s then ambassador to the U.S. testified that it was the “fervent desire of the government and people of Jamaica to clear the good name of Garvey …”

Professor Robert A. Hill, one of the world’s leading Garvey experts, gave testimony stating that Garvey was “innocent of the criminal charge of mail fraud [and] was unjustly convicted” citing his review of the 2,800-page trial record that Hill said failed “to reveal any substantial support for the government’s conviction …”

Hill concluded that the federal government prosecuted Garvey for “only one purpose — politically ridding the United States of the leader of the largest mass movement of people of African descent ever …”

Simon Woolley, the director of the London-based Operation Black Vote, when praising the August 2011 plaque erection echoed Hill’s conclusion when he said the U.S. government deliberately “thwarted” Garvey’s dream of a “powerful, economically sufficient Black world … because the American authorities simply could not let him succeed.”

The denial of a pardon to right the unjust wrong done to Garvey is sadly consistent with what a Washington Post editorial earlier this month criticized as Obama’s “miserly use of his pardon power.”

To date Obama’s issued only 17 pardons mostly for minor offenses — a posture certainly contradicting his campaign pledges to enact “change” once elected.

Former President Bush recorded the worst pardon record of any modern president and Obama is tracking even worse than Bush.

For those who defend Obama’s pattern of back-handing concerns involving blacks by arguing he has bigger problems to address than pardoning a “Garvey Who?” consider the fact that America’s path toward black political empowerment that Obama references (when expedient for his personal purposes) ran through Garvey’s UNIA.

The UNIA made multiple contributions to the Civil Rights Movement that spawned the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who Obama lauds as laying the foundations for his elevation to the Oval Office.

When King visited Jamaica in 1965 he laid a wreath on Garvey’s grave, praising Garvey as the first man to give millions of Blacks a “sense of dignity and destiny.”

Had America embraced just one-tenth of the 66 items contained in the UNIA’s 1920 “Declaration of Rights,” many of the race-based problems presently besieging this nation would be lessened if not eliminated.

That Declaration decried poor education and unjust punishment, and it opposed employment discrimination — three current plagues.

Garvey once said if Blacks are not careful they “will drink in all the poison of modern civilization and die from the effects of it.”

Linn Washington Jr. is a graduate of the Yale Law Journalism Fellowship Program.

From SCLC’s 1967 Convention to 2011’s King Dedication …

The storm-delayed ceremonies dedicating a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the nation’s capital brought both surviving family members and many of the late Dr. King’s contemporaries. Men of the movement such as Rev. Joseph Lowery, Ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, Julian Bond and Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, stood on the national mall with President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and several White House cabinet secretaries.

For some, the King Memorial dedication was a much-deserved tribute to a bygone era. Yet it in reality, it was that and more. The principles of freedom, justice and equality that King espoused are eternal — not generational. His life provides a glimpse into both what must be overcome and the fortitude to achieve it. For all that has been accomplished since King’s 1968 assassination, much more work has yet to be pursued.

On August 16, 1967, King delivered one of many prophetic speeches, though this one is seldom cited. The occasion was the 11th annual Southern Christian Leadership Convention. His keynote address asked the gathering, “Where do we go from here?” In part of that speech, King responded to his question with more questions.

“One day we must ask the question,” said King, “Why are there 40 million poor people in America?

Instead of 40 million people in poverty, the figure has now grown to 46 million. For African Americans, one in four people today live in poverty. Unemployment rates for African Americans are double those of the general population. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the most recent census data, since 2007, median incomes of Black families dropped 10 percent from $35,665 to $32,068.

Add to these disturbing inequalities, predatory lending with triple-digit interest for payday and car title loans, or dealer-mark-ups on auto financing, and disproportionate foreclosed homes, there is a measurable tax for being Black or Latino in America.

But like our martyred Martin, we must collectively find the will and way to transform unfair burdens into promising opportunities.

“Where do we go from here?” King repeated. “First we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amid a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values.”

The permanent memorial to King’s incredible life and legacy can also challenge us to make real the work he envisioned but did not live to see:

“I conclude by saying today that we have a task, and let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction.

“Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.

“Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

“Let us be dissatisfied until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.

“Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family will live in a decent, sanitary home.”

In 2011, the fight for equality goes on. — (NNPA)

Charlene Crowell is a communications manager with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., PECO collaborated with the Edward W. Bok Technical High School, located at 1901 S. 9th St. in South Philadelphia for a volunteer project to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy.

With more than 80 PECO employees present, PECO teamed up with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program to paint a mural that will support No Place For Hate, an initiative of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that challenges anti-Semitism, racism and hatred.

PECO employees poured into the school, bringing their families to contribute to the mural and to take part in the excitement of celebrating King alongside students from the school. The employees also worked together to repaint the whole cafeteria and repaint an area that will soon be known as “Bok Café.”

PECO has participated in community service events for MLK Days of Service for many years. They got involved with the school in 2010 through a partnership with the ADL. PECO’s partnership with the ADL leading them to connect with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and Bok Technical High School to collaborate on this diversity-themed mural.

Benjamin Armstrong, senior communications specialist at PECO, was impressed with the commitment and enthusiasm of the PECO employees.

“We even had more than 80 employees show up, so some of them went to participate at the Girard College event,” Armstrong said. “We want to support that event, but we also look for an opportunity with a school or organization each year to help make an impact on the community.”

Boaz Parker, a senior at Bok Technical High School, is the school’s lead coordinator for the No Place For Hate® initiative. Parker was happy to participate in the MLK event and found it to be very rewarding.

“When I heard there was service today I was on board with it,” he said. “Dr. King stood for what we’re doing today here.”

Ron Bradley, PECO vice president of gas and event executive sponsor, has been dedicated to the MLK Day of Service and was thrilled to see a great number of PECO employees and families participate.

“Everyone is so dedicated, and people are really doing some fine and articulate paint work,” Bradley said. “I think the whole intent of MLK Day of Service came through in a good way here.”

The PECO employees will continue their relationship with Bok Technical School and are now in the midst of collaborating with the school to produce a diversity-themed comic book for students.

“After the Dream: Black and White Southerners since 1965 — Civil Rights and the Struggle for Black Equality in the Twentieth Century” (The University Press of Kentucky, $40), begins where many histories of the civil rights movement end, with Martin Luther King’s triumphant march from the iconic battleground of Selma to Montgomery. Timothy J. Minchin and John Salmond (both Australian scholars) focus on events in the American South following the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “After the Dream” examines the social, economic and political implications of these laws in the decades following their passage, discussing the empowerment of Black southerners, white resistance, accommodation and acceptance, and the nation’s political will.

King’s 1965 address from Montgomery, Ala., the center of much racial conflict at the time and the location of the well-publicized bus boycott a decade earlier, is often considered by historians to be the culmination of the civil rights era in American history. In his momentous speech, King declared that segregation was “on its deathbed” and that the movement had already achieved significant milestones.

“(This book’s) focus is on what happened in the South following the passage of the two great pieces of enabling legislation: the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act,” write the authors in their forward. “It is concerned with their implementation, with resultant social and economic change, with the empowerment of of Black southerners, with white resistance, accommodation, and acceptance, with national political will and the lack of it. The signal event of the 1960s — the freedom rides, the Birmingham children’s crusade, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Martin Luther King’s dream, the murders in Mississippi — are frequently mentioned, but as precursors to the story we are trying to tell. This book surveys the last phase of that movement, the first to do so in any detail.”

Although the Civil Rights Movement had won many battles in the struggle for racial equality by the mid-1960s, including legislation to guarantee Black voting rights and to desegregate public accommodations, the fight to implement the new laws was just starting. In reality, King’s speech in Montgomery represented a new beginning rather than a conclusion to the movement, a fact that King acknowledged in the address.

“After the Dream” also provides a fascinating history of the often-overlooked period of race relations during the presidential administrations of Ford, Carter, Reagan and both George H. W. and George W. Bush. Ending with the election of President Barack Obama, this study will influence contemporary historiography on the Civil Rights Movement.

Contact Tribune staff writer Bobbi Booker at (215) 893-5749 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

If there’s a way to celebrate Martin Luther King Day and pay tribute to those who make local neighborhoods the “beloved community,” Mid-Atlantic Health Care and the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church has found it.

Together they kicked off Pennsylvania’s King week, which according to a resolution sponsored by state Sen. Shirley Kitchen, spans from Monday, Jan. 15 to Sunday, Jan. 22. The kick-off event took place at Enon’s Mount Airy campus, 2800 W. Cheltenham Ave. last Wednesday.

Philadelphia NAACP member Helen Green of Germantown felt it was important that the King celebrations include events that showcase community activism. She said her daughter, Cynthia Green of Wyncote, joined the Cheltenham NAACP recently. After being reminded of King’s legacy, she opted to join the North Philadelphia branch, which is near her own mother’s home.

“We really have to continue to keep King’s dream alive,” Green said. “I think we need to have programs like this so that our young people don’t take things for granted. We who are the elders need to come out and encourage them to participate in things like this.”

Cathy Hicks of the city’s Sheriff’s office concurred.

She said though the King Day of Service is helpful, she feels there should be more programs that directly teach about King’s legacy.

“I really want the King Day celebrations to be more like this — where we observe what he has done and then we can go and do service for the rest of the year,” she said.

Among the honorees were C. B. Kimmins, founder of Mantua Against Drugs. “It’s good to know that sometimes someone recognizes what you are doing,” Kimmens said.

For Malik Aziz, accepting the honor from his wheelchair was a proud moment. As one of the founders of Men United for a Better Philadelphia, and now executive director of Exhoodus Network, Aziz said that “10 murders every 10 days” in the city is unacceptable.  

“I grew up hearing Dr. King, Malcolm X and the others talking about positive change,” Aziz said. “I tell the young men my story of what I did at 17 years of age. I want to save them from what I did. That’s why I am still working to save our children.”

The other honorees were Lillian Daniels, the Rev. Derrick Johnson and Raymond Gant. Among the guest speakers and award presenters were 13th District Congresswoman Allyson Y. Schwartz, Mayor Michael Nutter, District Attorney Seth Williams and NAACP president Jerry Mondesire. Mid-Atlantic executives Dr. Jana Mallis, Jeff Grillo, Celeste Zappala, Diane Morgan and Dan McCathrey gave remarks. Additionally, Philadelphia’s own Bill Cosby phoned in his comments during the program.

Kitchen read a Commonwealth resolution that she sponsored declaring that from Monday, Jan. 15 until Sunday, Jan. 22, was King Week in Pennsylvania.

“This is a time when Pennsylvania can respect Dr. King’s legacy, and it’s a reminder that Dr. King understood that everyone needed to respect each other,” Kitchen said.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who was bombed, beaten and repeatedly arrested in the fight for civil rights and hailed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for his courage and tenacity, has died. He was 89.

Relatives and hospital officials said Shuttlesworth died Wednesday at Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham. A former truck driver who studied religion at night, Shuttlesworth became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953 and soon emerged as an outspoken leader in the struggle for racial equality.

"My church was a beehive," Shuttlesworth once said. "I made the movement. I made the challenge. Birmingham was the citadel of segregation, and the people wanted to march."

In his 1963 book "Why We Can't Wait," King called Shuttlesworth "one of the nation's most courageous freedom fighters ... a wiry, energetic and indomitable man."

Birmingham Mayor William Bell ordered city flags lowered to half-staff until after Shuttleworth's funeral. Bell, who is black, said he would not be mayor if not for leaders like Shuttlesworth.

"Dr. Shuttlesworth means so much to this city and his legacy will continue for generations," he said.

Shuttlesworth survived a 1956 bombing, an assault during a 1957 demonstration, chest injuries when Birmingham authorities turned fire hoses on demonstrators in 1963, and countless arrests.

"I went to jail 30 or 40 times, not for fighting or stealing or drugs," Shuttlesworth told grade school students in 1997. "I went to jail for a good thing, trying to make a difference."

Alabama's first black federal judge, U.W. Clemon, said Shuttlesworth flung himself at injustice well knowing he could be killed at any moment. "He was the first black man I knew who was totally unafraid of white folks," said Clemon, who retired from the bench and is now a privately practicing attorney.

Shuttlesworth remained active in the movement in Alabama even after moving in 1961 to Cincinnati, where he was a pastor for most of the next 47 years. He moved back to Birmingham in February 2008 for rehabilitation after a mild stroke. That summer, the once-segregated city honored him with a four-day tribute and named its airport after him. His statue also stands outside the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

And in November 2008, Shuttlesworth watched from a hospital bed as Sen. Barack Obama was elected the nation's first African-American president. The year before, Obama had pushed Shuttlesworth's wheelchair across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma during a commemoration of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

In the early 1960s, Shuttlesworth had invited King back to Birmingham. Televised scenes of police dogs and fire hoses being turned on black marchers, including children, in the spring of 1963 helped the rest of the nation grasp the depth of racial animosity in the Deep South.

. "He marched into the jaws of death every day in Birmingham before we got there," said Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador who served as an aide to King.

Young said it was Shuttlesworth's fearlessness that persuaded King to take the struggle to Birmingham.

"We shouldn't have been strong enough to take on Birmingham ... But God had a plan that was far better than our plan," Young said. "Fred didn't invite us to come to Birmingham. He told us we had to come."

Referring to the city's notoriously racist safety commissioner, Shuttlesworth would tell followers, "We're telling ol' 'Bull' Connor right here tonight that we're on the march and we're not going to stop marching until we get our rights."

According to a May 1963 New York Times profile of Shuttlesworth, Connor responded to the word Shuttlesworth had been injured by the spray of fire hoses by saying: "I'm sorry I missed it. ... I wish they'd carried him away in a hearse."

Fellow civil rights pioneer the Rev. Joseph Lowery said Shuttlesworth was determined.

"When God made Bull Connor, one of the real negative forces in this country, He was sure to make Fred Shuttlesworth." Lowery said.

While King won international fame, Shuttlesworth was relatively little known outside Alabama. But he was a key figure in Spike Lee's 1997 documentary, "4 Little Girls," about the September 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black children.

Shuttlesworth was born March 18, 1922, near Montgomery and grew up in Birmingham.

As a child, he knew he would either be a minister or a doctor and by 1943, he decided to enter the ministry. He began his theological courses at night while working as a truck driver and cement worker by day. He was licensed to preach in 1944 and ordained in 1948.

It was 1954 when King, then a pastor in Montgomery, came to Birmingham to give a speech and asked to stop by Bethel Baptist and meet Shuttlesworth.

Then in late 1955 in Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus, prompting the boycott led by King that gave new impetus to the civil rights movement.

In January 1956, King's Montgomery home was bombed while he attended a rally. Eleven months later, on Christmas night 1956, 16 sticks of dynamite were detonated outside Shuttlesworth's bedroom as he slept at the Bethel Baptist parsonage. No one was injured in either bombing, although shards of glass and wood pierced Shuttleworth's coat and hat left hanging on a hook.

The next day, Shuttlesworth led 250 people in a protest of segregation on buses in Birmingham.

In 1957, he was beaten by a mob when he tried to enroll two of his children in an all-white school in Birmingham.

In Cincinnati, Shuttlesworth left Revelation Baptist Church and became pastor of the Greater New Light Baptist Church in 1966.

In 2004, he was president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for about three months. The troubled organization's board had suspended Shuttlesworth without giving a reason after he tried to fire a longtime official. He resigned, saying board members tried to micromanage the organization.

He was 84 when he retired as the pastor of Greater New Light in 2006. "The best thing we can do is be a servant of God," he said in his final sermon. "It does good to stand up and serve others." -- (AP)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address and Aretha Franklin will headline the entertainers at this weekend's dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall.