Tag: Martin Luther King Jr.

Harlem Rev Snubs de Klerk

By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and GENE MUSTAIN, Daily News Staff Writers | Thursday, April 28, 1994

SOWETO—The preacher from Harlem paid no mind when the president from Pretoria made a surprise visit to a church here yesterday.

While dozens of people, including some of his fellow American preachers, crowded around South African President F. W. de Klerk and even shook his hand, the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker of the Canaan Baptist Church stayed to the side.

“How can you shake that man’s hand?” Walker asked members of the group here with him to observe the first election in this country in which blacks have been able to vote.

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NEW CHALLENGES FOR A NEW NATION: Sharpton Sees Lesson in South Africa Voting

By GENE MUSTAIN and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers | Sunday, May 1, 1994

JOHANNESBURG—After a whirlwind, emotional visit, the Rev. Al Sharpton flew home to New York yesterday with stars in his eyes.

“If only I could bring home in a bottle the hope and spirit I saw here, it would change New York politics forever,” said Sharpton, who’s challenging incumbent Daniel Moynihan for the U.S. Senate democratic nomination.

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. . . considering the import of history

King’s “Dream” speech

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

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