{"id":62504,"date":"2013-08-24T20:50:04","date_gmt":"2013-08-24T19:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/thousands-march-rally-honoring-mlks-legacy\/62504\/"},"modified":"2013-08-24T21:50:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-24T20:50:00","slug":"thousands-march-rally-honoring-mlks-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/thousands-march-rally-honoring-mlks-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands March, Rally Honoring MLK\u2019s Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>\n

NBC<\/a><\/strong>
\nAugust 24, 2013<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of people marched on D.C. streets Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington \u2013 and to rally for D.C. statehood.<\/p>\n

In rapid fire, speakers stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and called for all people to continue to pursue the dream King fought for 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the time for nostalgic commemoration,\u201d said Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of the slain civil rights leader. \u201cNor is this the time for self-congratulatory celebration. The task is not done. The journey is not complete. We can and we must do more.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder paid tribute to the forerunners of the modern civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir march is now our march, and it must go on,\u201d Holder said. \u201cBut for them, I would not be Attorney General of the United States, and Barack Obama would not be President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spoke of criticisms of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in June to strike down a key anti-discrimination provision of 1965\u2019s landmark Voting Rights Act, which triggered a wave of \u201ccumbersome\u201d voting laws in several states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis morning, we affirm that struggle must and will go on until every eligible American has a chance to exercise his or her right to vote,” said Holder, who sued Texas over a strict voter ID law on Thursday.<\/p>\n

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) joined Newark mayor Cory Booker, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Md.) in urging activists to advocate for equality and fairness, placing recent social debates in the context of King\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our people still inhabit islands of poverty, are incapable of finding good jobs, have no voice in our democracy, because they are told they have no valid ID,\u201d Hoyer said.<\/p>\n

Rev. Al Shaprton, a civil rights activist and host of PoliticsNation on MSNBC, spoke about the changes in the voting rights laws, the lack of a comprehensive jobs bill and the disillusioned attitudes of the youth of today.<\/p>\n

Referencing King\u2019s quote in his \u201cI Have A Dream\u201d speech about America giving people \u201ca check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds,\u2019\u201d Sharpton called for action to make lawmakers take notice about the financial disparity in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve re-deposited the check. Well, guess what? It bounced again. But this time it was marked stop payment,\u201d he said, addressing Congress with his words. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make you make the check good or we\u2019re going to close down the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharpton also explained why he thought King spoke about dreams 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cDreams are for those who won\u2019t accept reality. So they dream about what is not there, but will make it happen,\u201d Sharpton said. \u201cWe must give us our young people dreams again. You build jails, closed schools and break their dream and you wonder why they are wearing saggy pants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more
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NBC August 24, 2013 Tens of thousands of people marched on D.C. streets Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington \u2013 and to rally for D.C. statehood. In rapid fire, speakers stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and called for all people to continue to pursue the dream King […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,21,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-62504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-human-rights","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}