Marches, Protests, Parades Abound as the World Celebrates King's 89th Birthday

Around the United States and the world, people will today celebrate the birthday of Civil Rights hero, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. whose work as pivotal to the obtainment of Black Civil rights in the 1960s’.

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His memory lives on as conscious minded take a day away from their schedules to contribute to their community clean-up projects, food kitchens, food banks, family shelters, or benefit concerts.

Families also enjoy parades, dance exhibitions, live music and other activities sponsored by their municipalities and civil rights organizations. History and art museums across the nation open their doors taking visitors back in time, allowing them to relive the struggle in thousands of black and white photos.

Seven Chicagoan museums will waive their normal admission fees and offer unique film showings centering the 60s Black struggle, while national parks honor their tradition and provide guests with free entry. The state agency began the costume due to the Reverend’s use of nature-related metaphor’s which are a constant in his speeches and writings.

Indiana’s and North Carolina’s health sectors announced free flu shots, blood pressure screenings, and health screenings in an attempt to continue King’s fight against health disparities for lower income and minority groups. White River State Park also stated anyone who completes his or her health screening would be given free opening season tickets to the Indianapolis Indian’s baseball game.

Lexington, Kentucky, one of the country’s historical cities begins the morning with its annual Freedom March and continue throughout the day with a number of special programs including a speech from  anti-racism author, educator and activist Tim Wise whose book "White LIES Matter: Race, Crime and the Politics of Fear in America," will be released later this year.

In Oregon, the Black History 101 Mobile Museum will showcase over 7,000 artifacts from groundbreaking activists behind the 1968 movement such an Olympic Boxer Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe, the Black Panther Party, Shirley Chisholm among the host of other artists and musicians who contributed to Black rights. Remnants of the slave trade and the Jim Crow era will also be on exhibition, a press release reported.

Inmates of at least eight of Florida’s state prisons are commemorating the annual event in their own way, launching a large-scale strike, protesting the current living conditions in the penitentiary system. In a letter written to the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee's Gainesville chapter and the National Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons, prisoners announced their plans to launch the third massive movement to transpire over the course of a year, holding what they refer to as a “lay-down” or nonviolent strike.

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At least 10 Florida prisons participated in a major protest in September 2016, which is considered the largest prison strike to be organized in US history, The Intercept reports. In memory of the civil rights hero, inmates will set down their tools on Monday, January 15 in solidarity with “Operation Push”, a united rejection of unpaid labor or “slave labor” as they call it, price gouging in commissaries, and the restoration of parole, voting rights, environmental health conditions and the elimination of the death penalty.

"Our goal is to make the governor realize that it will cost the state of Florida millions of dollars daily to contract outside companies to come and cook, clean, and handle the maintenance. This will cause a total breakdown. In order to become very effective, we must use everything we have to show that we mean business," the prisoners’ statement read, adding they are willing to hold their strike for a month or longer if necessary.

Penitentiary protesters “willfully give up our privileges, like making phone calls, buying canteen, visits, and not attain to [attend] work assignments,” the Floridan prison strike organizers told extreme leftist news organization, ‘It’s Going Down.’ “We’re expecting all inmates throughout the state to be in one accord and act as a unit,” the organizer added.

“Dr. King said something that always stood with me. He said most men sleep through the revolution. Right now, we’re having a revolution in our country and you can see it manifesting every day, and if we don’t have the leadership to walk in power and demonstrate on how to respect one another we’re going to have a lot of chaos in our country,” Bishop Adell Whitenburg of Mount Chapel Baptist, Waveland, Mississippi.