Controversial talk duo's "accidental" racial slur. Mike Greenberg of The Mike and Mike in The Morning Show called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a coon. The firestorm has generated YouTube buzz and the host released a public statement apologizing for his discretion.
I just came home from the Knicks game and found out about the mess that was created by my garbling a sentence on our show this morning; I apologize for not addressing it sooner.
And I'm sorry that my talking too fast - and slurring my words - might have given people who don't know our show the wrong impression about us, and about me.
I feel horrible about that, because nothing could be further away from who I am and what our show is about.
I would never say anything like that, not in public, or in private, or in the silence of my own mind, and neither would anyone associated with our show, and I'm very sorry that my stumble this morning gave so many people the opposite impression.
The video appears on YouTube.
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was born January 15, 1929. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, this young man who envisioned millions to believe in change. A change that demanded all Americans are to be treated equal in the racially segregated South. A man who would be celebrated across the country on this third Monday, a leader to envision Civil Rights for all Americans. If Dr. King was still alive, he would have celebrated his 81st birthday.
According to Wikipedia, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded in January 1957, in the afterglow of the Montgomery Bus Boycott victory and consultations with Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, and others, Dr King invited some 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. In addition to Rustin and Baker, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, Rev Joseph Lowery of Mobile, Rev Ralph Abernathy of Montgomery, Rev C.K. Steele of Tallahassee, all played key roles in this meeting.
Today, the SCLC still holds true to these standards, combat discrimination, focus primarily on education, voter registration, and support for local struggles.
As we celebrate the birthday of Dr. King, I want to remind those who are reading that King was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-Americancivil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history.
