On King and Living a Life Beyond Fear

The Root Forty-three years to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s slaying, those who fight for social and economic justice still face real threats to their safety and rights, says the NAACP's president. By: Benjamin Todd Jealous Posted: April 4, 2011 at 12:18 AM Seventeen years ago, I was an organizer in Mississippi. And I was scared. We were planning a march to stop the governor from turning a public, historically black university, Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, into a prison. Byron De La Beckwith had just been put in prison for killing Medgar Evers -- the NAACP's field secretary in Mississippi. It was 30 years too late, but the Ku Klux Klan was still enraged that one of their own had been sentenced to prison for killing a black man. They threatened to kill me or one of the other organizers in retaliation. Full Story: http://www.theroot.com/views/king-and-living-life-beyond-fear