Martin Luther King III delivers message of change, racial justice in Rockland
Civil rights leader and community activist Martin Luther King III, son of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, visited Rockland County Monday with a message of change.
He was guest of honor at two events marking the achievements of civil rights in the county: Rockland County's annual Civil and Human Rights Hall of Fame induction at Rockland County Health Complex in Pomona on Monday morning and a scheduled Black History Month Fireside Chat Monday afternoon at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill.
"My parents knew that many of the great changes that they were working for would not be achieved during their lives," he said. "But through all of the setbacks, tragedies and disappointments, they kept on working with faith and commitment. That's what leadership is all about."
King was honored by the Rockland County Civil Rights Commission for his humanitarian work and continuing the legacy of his parents. At the Hall of Fame event, King spoke about continuing his father's legacy in the face of a changing political climate in America and the importance of making small change.
King was just 10 years old when his father was assassinated in 1968. He went on to become a civil rights leader and human rights activist himself after he graduated from Morehouse College, his father and grandfather's alma mater, in 1979.
"After my father was assassinated, my mom made sure that I, and my brothers and sisters, understood that the struggle for racial justice would be a lifelong project for each of us," King siad. "Through his example and her determination, they taught us about the transformative power of non-violent social change; the strategy which won all of the great victories of the modern civil rights movement.”
King's father came to Rockland County along with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, then legal director of the NAACP, in 1943 to visit the Brook School in Hillburn, whose students were facing segregation and poor school conditions.
Marshall fought for the desegregation of the school and one other in Hillburn. The case became a precursor to the historic 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education.
Inductees into the Rockland County Civil and Human Rights Hall of Fame:
Nikki Hines, local Black Lives Matter activist and president of the Nyack NAACP.
Vivian England, current liaison to the Chair of the Rockland County Legislature and former executive director of the Center for Safety and Change
Joseph Coe, board member of the Rockland County Pride Center
Andrea Myer-Winograd, Executive Director of the RCC Holocaust Museum.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Martin Luther King III delivers message of change in Rockland NY
