Happy MLK Day!

Happy Monday! Today, we acknowledge and honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of the greatest leaders of all time who fought for equity for all. He showed the world that one person can make a difference!

Singing Tips Live: Never Ever Give Up! MLK Day 2018!

Benita Charles Music in NYC

Thanks for joining me for another episode of Singing Tips Live! We discussed the importance of living your dreams and contributing to the world. We honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the contributions he made fighting social injustices. One person can make a difference and so can you!

NEVER EVER GIVE UP

I. What do you dream of doing?

• Do you know what you want to do in life? If so, are you doing it? 
• If not, what do you love to do? What do you do best?

II. Why should you pursue your dreams?

• You should pursue your dreams to make an impact on the world and leave a legacy
• It will fulfill your purpose in life (we are all unique and bring something special to the world
• The world needs what you have to offer

III. Why you should Never Ever Give Up?

• You won't get what you want if you give up
• You will grow along your journey and what you will gain is priceless
• It will be that much sweeter when you get it

IV. My Story (Benita Charles Music)

• I discovered my talent at an early age in grade school. I joined the children's choir and sang my first solo at 12 years old.  From that moment on, I've been singing ever since.  Over the years, I've sung and acted in school plays and musicals, studied voice (opera) in college, sang in club and event bands, did studio and session work, produced my own concerts and TV shows. I've gained a wealth of experience through the years.
• I've sung for free and I've gotten paid for it. I do it because I love it and it doesn't seem like work for me. 
• I am at home the most on stage or performing. It is the one thing in life I love I can do.
• As long as I have breath, I will sing.  I will always do this until I die. That's how much I love it and have to do it.

V.  One Person Can Make A Difference: The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

          Today, we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on January 15, 2018.

• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a baptist minister and most visible spokesman and social activist, who led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. The tactics he used were non-violence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by non-violence activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
• He won the Nobel Peace prize in 1964 for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. At age 35, he was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Among his many efforts, Dr. King headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
• Through his activism and inspirational speeches, he played a pivotal role in ending legal segregation of African-American citizens in the US, as well as the creation of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Sources: Wikipedia, biography.com

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/benita-charles/id200276662

Happy MLK Day 2018!

Today, we acknowledge and honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of the greatest leaders of all time who fought for equity for all. He showed the world that one person can make a difference!

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/us/mlk-relevance-today/index.html

Celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Civil rights leader. Activist. Orator. One of the greatest leaders of all times. He showed the world that one person can make a difference.

If you don't think you can make a difference in the world or that you don't have anything to offer, think again. Dr. King showed us that you can change the world by doing the right thing. His legacy lives on. Always strive to be your best - the world needs what you have to offer.

 The life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

-- Benita Charles Music

"Spreading love through music for your inspiration and entertainment!"


http://benitacharles.com


 
MLK Day 2017 - One Person Can Make A Difference! from Benita Charles on Vimeo.

A special Happy Birthday to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A special Happy Birthday to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Civil rights leader. Activist. Orator. One of the greatest leaders of all times. He showed the world that one person can make a difference.

If you don't think you can make a difference in the world or that you don't have anything to offer, think again. Dr. King showed us that you can change the world by doing the right thing. His legacy lives on. Always strive to be your best - the world needs what you have to offer.

 The life & legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

-- Benita Charles Music

"Spreading love through music for your inspiration and entertainment!"

http://benitacharles.com

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his birthday, January 15, 1929.

Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech August 28, 1963

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 captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?"
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only."

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"