Civil Rights

Viola Liuzzo

Martin Luther King, Jr.

. . . was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed. He attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B.A. degree from Morehouse College; received the B.D. from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott; together they had two sons and two daughters. King was a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He accepted the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott which lasted 382 days. After the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank. At the age of 35, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated in Memphis.

Janani Luwum

. . . was one of the more influential ecclesiastical leaders of the modern church in Africa. He was born in the village of Mucwini. He was consecrated Bishop of the Anglican Province of the North of Uganda. After five years of the Metropolitan Province of Uganda, he was named Archbishop, Rwanda, Burundi and Fashion Zaire, becoming the African second in reaching this responsibility. Archbishop Luwum led critics about the excesses of the regime of Idi Amin. The Archbishop and other clergymen were accused of treason. He was arrested along with two ministers of the government. The Archbishop was accused of being an agent of the ex-president Milton Obote and leading a coup d'etat. On the following day, Uganda Radio announced that the three had died when the vehicle that transported them to a holding center collided with another vehicle. When Luwum’s body was given to his relatives, it was filled with gunshots.

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Goldámez

. . . was a prominent Roman Catholic priest and Archbishop in El Salvador. After witnessing many human rights violations, he began to speak out on behalf of the poor and the victims of El Salvador's long and bloody civil war. This led to conflict with the government in El Salvador and with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. After speaking out against U.S. military support for the government of El Salvador, and calling for soldiers to disobey orders that harmed human rights, Archbishop Romero was shot to death while celebrating Mass at a small chapel near his cathedral. It is believed that his assassins were members of Salvadoran death squads, including two graduates of the School of the Americas.