Prophet Of Hope

Original 30″ x 40″ – Oil on Canvas

Limited Edition: 10,000 S/N – $75.00
Artist Proof: 7,000 S/N – $100.00
Remarque Print: 3,000 S/N – $150.00
Image Size: 24″ X 32″
Print Size: 26″ X 34″
Available: August 2011

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Limited Edition $75.00 Artist Proof $100.00 Remarques $150.00

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• Museum Quality Lithograph
• 10,000 Signed and Numbered Limited Editions
• 7,000 Artist Proofs
• 3,000 Remarque Prints
• Includes Certificate of Authenticity

          
Martin Luther King is the most recognized person associated with the 1960′s Civil Rights Movement. King was active from the start of the Montgomery Boycott from1955 to 1956 until his murder in April 1968. To many, Martin Luther King epitomized what the civil rights campaign was all about and he brought massive international media coverage to the movement.

          
Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15th, 1929. The church was very much a part of his life as both his father and grandfather had been Baptist preachers. They themselves were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He studied at the Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. It was while studying here, that King learned about the non-violent methods used by Mahatma Gandhi against the British in India. King became convinced that such methods would be of great value to the Civil Rights Movement.

          
After leaving Crozer, King got married to Coretta Scott. He became a Baptist pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He was in Montgomery at the start of the Montgomery bus boycott. He was appointed the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was created during the boycott and he became a prominent leader of the boycott even driving buses. King was arrested for starting a boycott and fined $500. His house was fire-bombed and others involved in the boycott were also intimidated – but by the end of 1956, segregation was lifted in Montgomery and bus integration had been introduced.

          
Another result of the boycott was the establishment of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This organization was committed to the use of non-violence and its motto was “Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed.” Martin Luther King was elected its president. The importance of the SCLC’s involvement was simply because the churches that represented the black population in the South were potent organizations and now that they had combined, their power and influence was multiplied.

A signed and numbered Certificate of Authenticity is included with each Commemorative series print. Actual Certificate may vary from the one shown depending on the print style ordered.

          
In 1963, Kennedy proposed his Civil Rights Bill. To persuade Congress to support this bill, King, with other civil rights leaders, organized the legendary March on Washington. The March on Washington was officially for Jobs and Freedom and was a major success. Held on August 28th, 1963, it attracted between 250,000 and 400,000 people. The final speaker was Martin Luther King, Jr. and it was there, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, that he made his legendary ‘I have a Dream’ speech which was heard throughout the world and publicized the Civil Rights Movement in America. Congress did accept Kennedy’s Civil Rights Bill and it became the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a fitting tribute to the now assassinated Kennedy.

          
On April 4th, 1968 6:01 pm CST, in Memphis, Tennessee, Martin Luther King was shot by an assassin. His death sparked off riots in many cities where 46 people were killed. In March 1969, James Earl Ray was found guilty of King’s murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Many years after starting his sentence, Ray maintained his innocence that he did not kill King.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement 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 spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’

— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have A Dream”,  August 28, 1963