Many found the idea for MLK Day preposterous, and with racism still running rampant throughout the country, it was no easy task to get the job done. Day in early 1981, understanding that such a massive event would help facilitate progress towards MLK’s dream of integration. Wonder started the campaign for Martin Luther King Jr. The Legacy of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ Creating a message of unity, and similarities between all of us was a key in turning this song into the powerhouse moment it ended up being. His ability to conceive that many people did not want to talk about social rights issues or acknowledge the rift in the United States at the time was spot on. The genius of Stevie Wonder is in the method in which he left a powerful note of activism layered beneath a song millions would use on their birthday for decades to come. Helado Negro is undoubtedly on point with his analysis. People get fed up with oppression and I think protest music can be fantastical and lead people to rethink, reposition and organize themselves.” “I think just because it’s a protest song it doesn’t have to have some sort of dogma attached, it can be more useful as a way to give people the energy to get out there and be heard. It’s an amazing way to make a song enlightening and fill you up with a positive feeling.” “There’s a lyric where he asked why can’t we have a day where we just celebrate peace? That’s the biggest protest song you can ever have. Wonder himself was a symbol of unity, that our differences did not make us and the very fact that there was hope for the country despite it being such a turbulent time. As an artist and musician, his work itself was boundary-breaking and transcendent. The torch was left to be carried on by the next generation of artists, thought-leaders and activists, of which Stevie Wonder rose to be a central figure. Many found it hard to pick up the pieces and continue the legacy of King and his contemporaries. During the 1960s, one of the most trying times in American history where JFK, Malcolm X, and RFK were all murdered in short succession, MLK’s death left a massive hole in the civil rights ecosystem. His assassination was a massive shock to the country and all its citizens. His work pushed human rights for so many across the country and he will always be remembered as someone who chose peace over violence. will forever be one of the greatest civil rights icons in American history.
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