The Dying Year

The Dying Year

by John Irving Pearce

Ring bells! oh, ring bells!

For the dying year-

Dawn cometh swiftly;

Death low-hovers near.

Wake! O ye echoes

Of the days long o'er!

Harbingers mytic

Of days now before.

Though many flowers

Ne'er can bloom again,

Though many hours might

Brighter far have been;

Weep not; Oh! weep not!

Other buds will come;

New loves will blossom

In some fairer home.

Let no regrettings

Mar the peaceful close;

Wrap in oblivion

All your weary woes.

Dream on; Oh, dream on!

Through the misty past,

Mingling hope's smiles with 

Mem'ry's tears at last

To The New Year

To The New Year

by L. Smith

My sweet New Year, I greet you!

Memory's broken toys

I leave with the Old Year--

You bring new life, new joys.

With outstretched hands I greet you!

Your breath is like the morn;

Your smiles cover memory--

Again new hopes are born.

With love I meet and greet you!

Give me your brave strong hand,

And lead me swiftly onward:

'T is dangerous here to stand.

The Old For The New

 The Old for the New

by L. Smith

QLD YEAR,  I've loved you well; too well;
And yet for you I shed no tear,
No more to you my secrets tell:
I 'II whisper them to this New Year;
And Oh, I know he'll do his part
And lock them close within his heart.

Old Year, again I say good-bye;
We've walked together, oh, so long!
You've caused me many and many a sigh,
Yet oft you've filled my heart with song.
This is the parting of the ways;
Good-bye to you, and all your days!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Left, monument in Birmingham Alabama and
Right, monument in Washington D.C.

       Martin Luther King Jr. was born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929  and died April 4, 1968. He was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.

       King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, he led an unsuccessful 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the 1963 nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

       On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the following year he and SCLC took the movement north to Chicago to work on segregated housing. In the final years of his life, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty and the Vietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam".

       In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. King's death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities.

       King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington State was also renamed for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

• The King Center 
• The National Museum of African American History

Civil Rights Artifacts:

• "I Have a Dream..." Speech
• "Free At Last" Hymn  
• Emancipation Proclamation

Civil Rights Links:

• Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle ~ an online multimedia encyclopedia presented by the King Institute at Stanford University, includes information on over 1000 civil rights movement figures, events and organizations
• Encyclopædia Britannica: Article on Civil Rights Movement
• The History Channel: Civil Rights Movement
• Civil rights during the Eisenhower Administration, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

Emancipation Proclamation

       The Emancipation Proclamation is a state paper issued by President Lincoln, January 1, 1863, by which all slaves in the states or parts of states actually engaged in rebellion and unrepresented in Congress, or not in possession of the Union armies, were declared free. It was justified as a "fit and necessary war measure" and had been contemplated by Lincoln for many months. When, in September, 1862, Lee was checked at the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary statement announcing his intention of declaring the slaves free on January 1rst if the South in the meantime did not return to the Union. The final proclamation did not legally abolish slavery, but abolition was made effective by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln.

Reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio

• A zoomable image of the Leland-Boker authorized edition of the Emancipation Proclamation held by the British Library
• Lesson plan on Emancipation Proclamation from EDSITEment NEH
• Text and images of the Emancipation Proclamation from the National Archives
• Emancipation Proclamation and related resources at the Library of Congress
• Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Emancipation Proclamation
• First Edition Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 Harper's Weekly
• Chronology of Emancipation during the Civil War
• American Abolitionists and Antislavery Activists, chronology of Abraham Lincoln and emancipation
• Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at the New York State Library – images and transcript of Lincoln's original manuscript of the preliminary proclamation
• The Emancipation Proclamation public domain audiobook at LibriVox