HONORING MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

On 2026-01-15, Representative Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) delivered a floor speech titled "HONORING MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR." in the House. The speech addressed defense.

HONORING MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 11 (Thursday, January 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 11 (Thursday, January 15, 2026)] [House] [Pages H911-H912] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] HONORING MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (Ms. SIMON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.) Ms. SIMON. Mr. Speaker, in 1968, 75 percent of Americans disapproved of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today is his birthday. The FBI called him the most dangerous Negro in America. They wiretapped his home and his office. They sent him a letter, suggesting that he should take his own life. King kept walking. One year before Memphis, at Riverside Church, he said what cost him resources and allies. He said: ``The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.'' He said: ``A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.'' Then he built the Poor People's Campaign. Black, White, and Brown came together, demanding that Congress address poverty in the richest Nation on this Earth. This is the King that we must remember, not the safe icon but the dangerous peacemaker. He wrote: ``I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history.'' [[Page H912]] As we honor his legacy, let us refuse what he refused. Let us walk where he walked: Toward justice, toward the oughtness that forever confronts us. ____________________