Monday, April 27, 2015
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Address of
Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Commonwealth
For centuries, Massachusetts has been at the epicenter for innovation,
education, industrial and technological advances, and the pursuit of freedom
and justice. Great leaders and intellectual
pioneers have come from and come to our state.
Today, the State House halls and chambers were replete with people who
came to recall the words and actions of a man who personified the pursuit for
civil rights in our nation and in our time.
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the General Court from
the rostrum of the House Chamber and delivered a speech that helped bring focus
to the Voting Rights Act that would become law just a few months later.
“There are still too many individuals who argue and who feel
that the problem of racial injustices can only be solved by waiting on time,”
said Dr. King. “Ultimately we must come
to see that that human progress never rolls in on the wills of inevitability.
It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of the dedicated individuals
who are willing to be co-workers with God.”
Today’s State House ceremony marked the anniversary of King’s
visit to the State House in April of 1965.
Governor Charlie Baker joined the Speaker of the House and Senate
President along with several former legislators who were present for the
historic address. King had recalled that
President Kennedy had been at the forefront of the effort to secure civil
rights for all Americans. Kennedy, he
said, had declared that the race relations problem that the country faced was
not a sociological problem but rather a moral one.
Racial discord, ethnic intolerance and violence must yield to
civility and a moral sense of a shared society.
Certainly, lawmakers can set the legal parameters for acceptable
behavior but the real lessons of Dr. King can be found in how we treat one
another as neighbors and as King put it, ‘a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”
