Apple devotes homepage to Martin Luther King Jr. as family leads march for voting rights

In an annual tradition, Apple has again devoted its homepage to celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a single-sentence quote. This year’s quote comes from a talk King gave to teenagers at Philadelphia’s Barratt Junior High School in 1967.

I believe that we can transform dark yesterdays of injustice into bright tomorrows of justice and humanity.

You can watch a video of the speech below …

Apple comments: “Today and every day, we honor his life and legacy of service.”

In the talk, King asked students to ask themselves how they would plan their lives?

I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is in your life’s blueprint?

This is the most important and crucial period of your lives. For what you do now and what you decide now at this age may well determine which way your life shall go.

And whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint. And that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, as the model, for those who are to build the building. And a building is not well erected without a good, sound, and solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is: whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

He went on to suggest some elements for inclusion. A belief in your own self-worth. To study hard, to create a path to a better future. A determination to achieve excellence in whatever your life’s work may be.

If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera, and sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: “Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”

If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill, be a scrub in the valley, but be the best little scrub on the side of the hill. Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. For it isn’t by size that you win or you fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

He urged the students to work always for freedom and justice for all.

You have a responsibility to seek to make life better for everybody. And so you must be involved in the struggle for freedom and justice […]

Yes, our slogan must be “Learn, baby, learn” so that we can earn, baby, earn.

I believe that we can transform dark yesterdays of injustice into bright tomorrows of justice and humanity. Let us keep going toward the goal of selfhood, toward brotherhood, and toward the realization of the dream of understanding and goodwill. Let nobody stop us.

The WSJ reports that King’s family will be leading a march in support of safeguarding voting rights for all by making election day a national holiday, and allowing mail-in ballots.

The nation’s capital will mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a march for voting rights led by the late civil rights leader’s family, as congressional Democrats vow to press ahead on voting-rights legislation despite its expected failure […]

The Senate is scheduled to begin debate on voting legislation this week, but Republicans are expected to block passage despite all Democrats being united in favor.