Black & Proud (Say It Loud)...

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The actor who played Bunk broke this down years ago

Forgot the interview

I think it was the spike Lee documentary

When the leevees broke?
 

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PRESIDENT, SIGNING BILL, PRAISES DR. KING


By Robert Pear
  • Nov. 3, 1983

Credit...The New York Times Archives
See the article in its original context from
November 3, 1983, Section A, Page 28Buy Reprints

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.

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Black and white Americans, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives joined today in an act of unity as President Reagan signed a bill to establish a Federal holiday in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A crowd of several hundred began singing ''We Shall Overcome'' after Mr. Reagan signed the bill in the Rose Garden of the White House.
The President paid warm tribute to Dr. King, saying his words and deeds had ''stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul.''

Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has said he will announce on Thursday his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, were among those in the Rose Garden for an occasion that blacks described as an exciting, historic day.



'Redemption, Reconciliation'

Mrs. King said America was a more democratic, just and peaceful nation because of her husband's work. ''His nonviolent campaigns brought about redemption, reconciliation and justice,'' she said. ''Martin Luther King Jr. and his spirit live within all of us,'' she said. ''Thank God for the blessing of his life and his leadership and his commitment. What manner of man was this? May we make ourselves worthy to carry on his dream and create the love community.''

The new law establishes the third Monday in January as a Federal holiday, starting in 1986. On such holidays, Federal offices are closed throughout the country. Many states observe Federal holidays, but state and local governments decide whether to close other places such as schools and banks.
Dr. King was born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. In his remarks today, Mr. Reagan said that those 39 years ''changed America forever,'' and he accorded much of the credit to Dr. King. She Accepted Apology

Later, in response to questions, Mrs. King declined to criticize the President, who until recently resisted proposals for a Federal holiday honoring Dr. King. She said she had accepted the President's apology for his comments about her husband at a news conference last month.

Mr. Reagan was asked then whether he agreed that Dr. King was a ''Communist sympathizer,'' as Senator Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, had asserted. Mr. Reagan replied, ''We'll know in about 35 years, won't we?'' Under a court order, records of electronic surveillance of Dr. King, conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are sealed in the National Archives until the year 2027.



Today's ceremony gave Mr. Reagan an opportunity to attempt to improve his political standing among blacks, who have repeatedly criticized his record on civil rights. Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Manhattan Democrat, one of many blacks in the audience, said: ''The President was eloquent. If we could only get his policies to catch up with his speech, the country would be in great shape.'' Jackson Is Pleased

After the ceremony, participants roamed the Rose Garden, celebrating and socializing. Mr. Jackson, a disciple of Dr. King, said of President Reagan: ''We've all had high and low moments. This is one of his high moments.''

Mayor Andrew Young of Atlanta, who served as Dr. King's chief lieutenant in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said of the signing: ''This is a historic act. I'm grateful I lived to see this day.''

Before signing the bill, Mr. Reagan reviewed Dr. King's career, starting with the bus boycott in Alabama in 1955. ''In the years after the bus boycott,'' he said, ''Dr. King made equality of rights his life's work. Across the country, he organized boycotts, rallies and marches. Often he was beaten, imprisoned, but he never stopped teaching nonviolence.''

Mr. Reagan said, ''If American history grows from two centuries to 20,'' people will still remember Dr. King's ''I Have a Dream'' speech, delivered before the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. Rededication Is Urged

''Traces of bigotry still mar America,'' the President said. ''So each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the commandments he believed in and sought to live every day. ''Thous shalt love thy God with all thy heart and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.''

''As a democratic people,'' he said, ''we can take pride in the knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took action to correct it.

And we should remember that in far too many countries, people like Dr. King never had the opportunity to speak out at all.''



On a related matter, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Delaware Democrat, said today that he had gained support from 52 other senators, including 13 Republicans, for a bill to establish a commission on civil rights as an arm of Congress. After Mr. Reagan dismissed three members of the Civil Rights Commission last week, civil rights lobbyists began a campaign to remove the agency from the executive branch.

The bill offered by Senators Biden and Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, would create an eight-member commission, with four members appointed by the Speaker of the House and four by the President Pro Tem of the Senate. The new agency would inherit all the powers of the commission established in 1957. Reagan Administration officials and the Senate majority leader, Howard H. Baker Jr., a Tennessee Republican who supported the King birthday holiday, said they opposed the idea.
 
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