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Article: Hearing King in 2002.(Editorials)(His message still resonates)(Editorial)
- Article from:
- The Register Guard (Eugene, OR)
- Article date:
- January 21, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Register Guard. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: The Register-Guard
To 21st century schoolchildren, the Voting Rights Act is as distant as the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act was to young people living in the 1960s. As the civil rights movement recedes from living memory, there's a danger that Martin Luther King Jr. will go with it - that he'll stand safely atop his pedestal, a figure important to history but not to the lives of people today. It would be a mistake to let that happen.
King stood at the pivot point of a fundamental transition in American life - the enfranchisement of all Americans to full citizenship and equal opportunity. That transition is incomplete, but its premise is unchallenged to ...