Commemorating the 35th Anniversary of the Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

COMMEMORATING THE 35TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, 35 years ago on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life was tragically cut short by an assassin's bullet. Dr. King was just 39 years old. In 1963, Dr. King delivered a funeral eulogy for the children who were killed by a firebomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King said: "Your children did not live long, but they lived well. The quantity of their lives was disturbingly small, but the quality of their lives was magnificently big." Dr. King's own words could be said about himself.

Only three Americans have ever had a Federal holiday named for them by Congress. Two were presidents George Washington helped create our Nation and Abraham Lincoln helped preserve it. The third, Martin Luther King, Jr., never held an elected office but he redeemed the moral purpose of the United States. He reminded us that since we are all created equal, all of us are equally entitled to be treated with dignity, fairness, and humanity.

Last month I had an opportunity to visit the State of Alabama for the first time. I went there with Democratic and Republican Members of Congress, on a delegation led by Republican John Lewis from Atlanta, GA. We paid a visit to some of the most important spots in American civil rights history. Dr. King's fingerprints are on these and countless other watershed events in American civil rights history.

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We went to Montgomery and stood on the street corner where Rosa Parks boarded the bus in 1955 and refused to give up her seat to a white rider, as was required by city law. After Rosa Parks was arrested, Dr. King led a bus boycott in Montgomery, where he had just moved for his first pastorate.

We went to Birmingham and visited the 16th Street Baptist Church. Before the tragic bombing in 1963, the church had been used for civil rights rallies and desegregation protests, and Dr. King had spoken there and throughout Birmingham on many occasions. He wrote his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" 40 years ago after being arrested for leading a protest in April 1963. We went to Selma and stood at the spot on the Edmund Pettus Bridge where, in 1965, a young John Lewis was beaten unconscious by Alabama State troopers, at the time the 52-mile voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery was turned back. In response, Dr. King led a second march, and these brave actions led to Congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Dr. King is the pre-eminent civil rights figure in our Nation's history, but he would not have been as successful had it not been for a handful of courageous federal judges who despite death threats to themselves and family members used the judiciary to help dismantle the legacy of Jim Crow. For example, Alabama Judge Frank Johnson was part of a three-judge panel that struck down Montgomery's bus-segregation law, holding that separate but equal facilities were violations of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. And after Governor George

Wallace banned the Selma-to-Montgomery march, Judge Johnson issued the order that allowed Dr. King and Rep. Lewis to conduct the march, calling the right to march "commensurate with the enormity of the wrongs that are being protested." Dr. King called Judge Johnson a jurist who had "given true meaning to the word 'justice."'

Dr. King was keenly aware of the importance of the federal judiciary to ensure equality and justice in our society. In a 1958 speech at Beth Emet synagogue in Evanston, Illinois, Dr. King said: "As we look to Washington, so often it seems that the judicial branch of the Government is fighting the battle alone. The executive and legislative branches of the Government have been all too slow and stagnant and silent, and even apathetic, at points. The hour has come now for the federal government to use its power, its constitutional power, to enforce the law of the land."

Regrettably, President George W. Bush has been appointing Federal judges who have tried to limit the ability of the federal government to use its constitutional power to enforce the law of the land. Many of his judicial nominees are conservative ideologues who believe that the Federal Government lacks the constitutional power to provide meaningful remedies and access to the courts for victims of discrimination. In the name of States rights, these nominees have urged federal courts to strip Congress of its powers and citizens of their remedies. I question whether the President is appointing men and women to the federal judiciary who will make courageous decisions and, in the words of Dr. King, give true meaning to the word justice.

Despite this unfortunate trend, I think Dr. King would have remained optimistic. In a 1965 speech of Dr. King's entitled "A Long, Long Way to Go"—published for the first time this month in a new book called "Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches"—Dr. King said:

There are dark moments in this struggle, but I want to tell you that I've seen it over and over again, that so often the darkest hour is that hour that just appears before the dawn of a new fulfillment.

Dr. King's optimism in the face of dark moments is one of his enduring legacies. On this 35th anniversary of his death, I pay tribute to his optimism, courage, and heroism that transformed our Nation.