MLK Archives - Northwest Public Broadcasting

Poetry Challenge: Honor Martin Luther King Jr By Describing How You Dream A World

By NPR News January 18, 2021

Martin Luther King Jr. addresses the crowd at the March On Washington D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. CREDIT: CNP/Getty Images

As we enter 2021, we can all draw inspiration from both King and Hughes. Morning Edition resident poet Kwame Alexander and host Rachel Martin suggest we write our way out of the unprecedented events of the past year and into a space of possibility.Read More

10 Years After White Supremacist Tried To Bomb Spokane’s MLK Parade, Extremism Is More Mainstream

By Scott Leadingham January 17, 2021

The backpack bomb made by Kevin Harpham, of Stevens County, Washington, was discovered on the parade route of Spokane's 2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, before it could be detonated. CREDIT: FBI

This week marks 10 years since a white supremacist attempted to bomb the Martin Luther King Junior Day parade through downtown Spokane. The bomb was discovered and defused just in the nick of time. But the effects of extremist ideologies in the region lived on. Journalist Leah Sottile examined that in the podcast Bundyville, from Oregon Public Broadcasting. Leah spoke with Read More

John Lewis, Towering Civil Rights Icon, Memorialized At Atlanta Funeral

By NPR News July 30, 2020

A mourner pauses by the casket of Rep. John Lewis lying in repose at the Georgia state Capitol on Wednesday in Atlanta. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died on July 17. CREDIT: John Bazemore/AP

The longtime congressman and civil rights legend is being memorialized at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton spoke.Read More

1968-2020: A Tale Of Two Uprisings

By NPR News June 5, 2020

LEFT: Leaders of a march of about 255 people stare at police officers who stopped the group from marching on city hall in Pritchard, Ala, on June 12, 1968. RIGHT: A protester shows a picture of George Floyd from her phone to a wall of security guards near the White House on June 3, 2020, in Washington, DC.

I remember how tumultuous 1968 felt. Cops in riot gear and flaming storefronts are nothing new—but this time around, things feel even more dire.Read More

For MLK Day, ‘Just Mercy’ Attorney Asks U.S. To Reckon With Its Racist Past And Present

By NPR News January 20, 2020

The Legacy Museum and Memorial are designed to bring visitors "closer to the anguish and the suffering" of the past. CREDIT: Human Pictures

Stevenson built a museum and monument in Alabama dedicated to slavery and its legacy. "We need to create institutions in this country that motivate more people to say 'Never again,' " he says.Read More

Storycorps Northwest: 50 Years On, A Seattle Daughter Recalls Her Slain Civil Rights Leader Father

By NPR News March 23, 2019

A family photo of Bettye, Miriam and Edwin Pratt together in 1966. Courtesy of Jean Soliz

Miriam Pratt was five years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. She remembers that after her father, Seattle Urban League leader Edwin Pratt, found out, he paced back and forth in his bedroom. "He was emotional," Pratt's daughter tells Jean Soliz, her godmother, at StoryCorps. "I had never seen him like that."Read More

Amid Shutdown, Martin Luther King Jr. National Park Reopens For Holiday, Thanks To A Private Grant

By NPR News January 21, 2019

The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta is open for the first time in nearly a month, after a grant from the Delta Air Lines Foundation made up for the lack of federal funds from the partial government shutdown. CREDIT: Jeff Greenberg/UIG via Getty Images

Without money from the Delta Air Lines Foundation, Atlanta's Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park would have been closed for the King holiday, a National Park Service spokesman told NPR.Read More

In Newly Found Audio, A Forgotten Civil Rights Leader Says Coming Out ‘Was An Absolute Necessity’

By NPR News January 7, 2019

American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, pictured in 1964, as spokesman for the Citywide Committee for Integration, at the organization's headquarters, Silcam Presbyterian Church in New York City. CREDIT: Patrick A. Burns/New York Times Co./Getty Images

Bayard Rustin's legacy as a leading figure in the civil rights movement is little known today, even among many history buffs and within the LGBTQ community. His homosexuality cost him that visibility and was considered by some as a hindrance to the movement's success.Read More