Happy birthday Rev. King!

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By WEINSTEIN On Jan. 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Ga. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., after having led a march of 6000 protesters in support of striking sanitation workers of that city.

As the Rev. King himself said, "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." After long years of struggle, his birthday has been declared a national holiday.

Listening to Stevie Wonder's tribute to King (his beautiful Happy Birthday song), brings back memories from 23 years ago when I joined 250,000 other people marching in Washington, D.C., for civil rights. On that date, Aug. 28, 1963, I heard King deliver his now-famous "I Had A Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

The idea of a mass march in the nation's capital caught the imagination of millions of people in this country and helped to impel the Black struggle forward. In fact, the 1963 march was a precursor of the huge mobilizations against the Vietnam War that took place several years later.

At the time, I was active in the Brooklyn Bedford-Stuyvesant chapter of the NAACP. Ours was a militant chapter which organized the country's first boycott against school segre -gation in Brooklyn in 1957.

Previous to this, we had jumped into the Montgomery, Ala., bus-boycott support cam -paign by raising funds for the Montgomery Improvement Asso -ciation, the organization leading the struggle. We raised funds to send station wagons there to provide Black bus boycotters with alternate means of trans -portation.

When the national call came for a March on Washington, our NAACP chapter began organi -zing for it. We were told to bring a lunch and supper and to wear good marching shoes.

At 5 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 28, we began boarding small yellow school buses to make the 300-mile trip to Washington. No one complained of the early hour or of the heat and humidity, which could already be felt. We were involved in that greatest of all human movements-changing the course of history.

It wasn't until we hit the highway and could look behind us that we could see bus after bus after bus. We could not count them, as they disappeared around the curves of the highway. But as far as we could see, there was just "us." We felt the power of our numbers.

It was at our "reststop" in Maryland that we set policy-a symbol of deep determination. We removed all "colored" and "whites only" signs from the restrooms. For that day, those expressions of racism were destroyed.

Nowadays, if you are driving through Maryland, you will not find any "whites only" restrooms. The civil-rights movement of the 1960s—which involved millions of Americans-put an end to Jim Crow discrimination.

Of course, oppressed people in this country still have a very long way to go to win their freedom. But the historic move -ment that the Rev. King helped build and lead forward is a shin -ing example of what's possible.

We can make it all the way.

Martin Luther King Jr.: Happy birthday to you!

Martin Luther King, Jr., leads antiwar march in 1967 cynically manipulates both sides in the Iran-Iraq war and uses the profits to violate the will of Congress to fund the contras.

Freeze and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race This dangerous course is carried into disarmament talks where U.S. negotiators insist on continuing nuclear testing and pressing forward with the "Star Wars" project—a plan which would place hundreds and perhaps thousands of nuclear weapons into outer space. In the name of "defense" and at a cost of billions, if not trillions of dollars, our planet would be surrounded by terrible weapons of total destruction.

Virtually every public opinion poll records majority opposition to these policies. Yet the politicians say they speak in our name.

Jobs and Justice, Not War More bombs and armaments are built while our schools and cities decline, our factories close, and our working conditions deteriorate. Millions of Black, Latino, Asian, Native American, and other national minorities suffer the worst effects of the economic crisis because racism and discrimination still exist in our society. $290 billion is spent on the war budget while AIDS research proceeds at a snail's pace because of lack of funds.

We are the Majority. We Can Make a Difference.

As the politicians meet in the spring in Washington, D.C., to consider the expenditure of funds for destruction, we must mobilize again, in numbers greater than ever before. We must express our priorities and make our voices heard.

We must say "NO" to U.S. intervention in Central America and "NO" to South African apartheid. We must say "YES" to reversing the nuclear arms race and putting our resources into building homes for our homeless, feeding our hungry, finding a cure for AIDS, and ending discrimination; in short—building a world with peace, jobs, and justice for all.

Join us in a mass march and rally in San Francisco, Calif., and Washington, D.C., on Saturday, April 25, 1987.

The Mobilization for Peace, Jobs, and Justice is a broad-based coalition united on four themes: No U.S. Intervention in Central America; End U.S. Support for South African Apartheid; Freeze and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race; Jobs and Justice, not Mobilization co-chairs: John George, Supervisor, Alameda County Board of Supervisors; Dr. Howard Gloyd, Pastor, Bethel AME Church; Walter Johnson, Secretary Treasurer, San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO; Albert V. Lannon, President, ILWU Local 6; Pat Norman, Director, San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Health Services; Mario Obledo, Past National President, League of United Latin American Citizens; Father Peter J. Sammon, Pastor, St. Teresa's Church; Charlene Tschirhart, San Francisco Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.