On this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday -- marking what would have been the slain civil rights leader's 89th birthday -- we are talking about Dr. King’s legacy, and how the movement for racial and economic equality and justice is positioned moving forward.
This year, we’ll also mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, as well as of the Fair Housing Act, which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law just a week after King’s death, as cities across the country were enveloped in violence.
Violence in many forms remains part of the American landscape, and with the political rise of Donald Trump, violent and abrasive rhetoric now permeates public discourse to a heart-breaking degree, from Charlottesville to the Oval Office.
Joining Tom on this MLK Day edition is a panel of guests with keen insights into the long, continuing quest for racial justice in America:
DeRay Mckesson is a civil rights activist and the host of a podcast called Pod Save the People;
Michael Higgenbotham teaches at the University of Baltimore Law School. He’s the author of Ghosts of Jim Crow: Ending Racism in Post-Racial America;
Taylor Branch is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Parting the Waters, the first volume of his seminal history of the civil rights movement, America in the King Years.
And joining the conversation on the line from Frederick, where she is on the history faculty of Hood College: Dr. Terry Anne Scott. She teaches African American history and writes about African American social and cultural history.
Tom and his guests also respond to listener comments and questions.
