In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and gave his famous “I have a dream” speech. Today, fifty years on, in tribute to the great civil rights leader, the US marks Martin Luther King Jr Day with a federal holiday in his name. Today also sees Barack Obama take to the steps of the city’s Capitol Building for his second public inauguration as President of the United States of America. …
Today the USA celebrates Martin Luther King Jr Day, a federal holiday to honour the man who helped change America (although not by as much as he would have liked). The civil rights campaigner would have turned 83 yesterday, had he not been assassinated in April 1968. The Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington opened to the public some months ago and it has recently been announced that a controversial (mis)quote on one side of the monument is be …
There is nothing that casts the gulf in language and empathy between nationalists and any sort of long term reconciliation within the UK in such stark contrasts as episodes like Pat Finucane’s murder by agents of the state, and, the unfolding of the subsequent attempts by the state to simulate a process of legal and judicial redress. Both nationalism and unionism regularly struggle under the weight of their preferred histories but the diametric perspectives offered by their differing requirements for a relationship with London can often find ways to securely root those histories in relatively …
