Civil rights teachings resonate with UN’s goals by Asha-Rose Migiro 12:48pm 5th Apr, 2008   8 May 2008    Martin Luther King an ‘unsurpassed advocate’ of UN values, says Ban Ki-moon.    Viewing original papers written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta – the city he called home – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today paid tribute to the renowned United States civil rights leader, saying the values he lived and died for are shared by the United Nations.    “Dr. King remains an unsurpassed advocate of all the UN stands for: peace, economic and social justice, and human rights,” Mr. Ban told an audience of dignitaries, in the exhibition hall of the Robert W. Woodruff Library, part of the Atlanta University Center.    The Secretary-General said he was especially inspired by the enduring bravery of Dr. King, who was slain by an assassin’s bullet 40 years ago.    “I will leave here forever impressed by Dr. King’s courage,” said Mr. Ban.    “He could see the bridge between the terrible injustices in our world and the noble rightness that humanity can achieve. He spent his life building that bridge and marching across it, from despair to hope, from suffering to salvation, from war to peace and from hate to love,” the Secretary-General told the audience, which included two of Dr. King’s children, Martin Luther King III and Rev. Bernice King.    Mr. Ban said Dr. King’s principled bravery resonates at the UN. “As the United Nations strives to tackle the problems raging our world and to realize the principles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we carry in our hearts Dr. King’s unending courage and his unbending conviction.”    He told the audience at the Atlanta University Center today that his profound respect for Dr. King only deepened over the years.    “Today, my admiration grew even further, as I saw the papers lodged in this Library,” said Mr. Ban. “Seeing the original of ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail,’ with paragraphs that Dr. King wrote on scraps of paper, I could only imagine what intellectual courage and conviction went into the effort,” he said, pointing out that the now-revered treatise had to be smuggled out from behind bars.    Mr. Ban also viewed documents showing the links between Dr. King and his long-time supporter Ralph Bunche, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs who, in 1950, became the first African-American man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. King was the second, receiving the honour 14 years later, in 1964.    During the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Mr. Bunche told supporters at the Montgomery Statehouse that the UN was with them. “In the UN, we have known from the beginning that secure foundations for peace in the world can be built only upon the principle and practice of equal rights and status for all peoples, respect and dignity for all.”    Mr. Ban said those words “capture the conviction underlying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose 60th anniversary we celebrate this year.”    Adrian Carver, Communications Manager for the Robert W. Woodruff Library, agreed that Dr. King’s overall mission was focused on human rights. “Civil rights was part of human rights. He always talked about human beings, and their right to pursue the highest of heights,” she told the UN News Service. “And it’s even more obvious when you look at the foundings of some of the most famous King materials that that was always central among his thinking, his writing and his actions.”    4 April 2008    The ideas espoused by Martin Luther King Jr., including racial harmony, poverty eradication and human rights for all, resonate with the aims of the United Nations, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today, paying tribute to the life of the United States civil rights leader who was slain 40 years ago.    Addressing students and faculty at Syracuse University, Ms. Migiro recalled Dr. King’s appeal for countries to work together for the greater common good, as he exhorted every nation to ‘develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.’    “This is the central purpose of the United Nations, which brings all States together in a forum where they can rise above national interests, so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts,” stated Ms. Migiro.    Noting that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Deputy Secretary-General said that document and Dr. King’s legacy are both “profound and timeless statements on the civil rights – the human rights – of all people.”    In addition, Dr. King’s call for an end to poverty still resounds at the UN, and is reflected in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – pledges made by world leaders in 2000 to cut poverty, illiteracy and other social ills, all by 2015.    “The aim was to forge a great partnership of countries working to help each other in the interests of humanity as a whole,” Ms. Migiro said.    And in doing so, “we must learn from each other in a world that is more interdependent than ever,” she added, noting that in a world where problems – including terrorism, AIDS, poverty, racism and climate change – transcend borders, “the only effective response is global.”    She emphasized that Dr. King’s message rings more true today than when he delivered it in his lifetime. “The best and only tribute we can pay to this towering individual, who gave so much to the world and paid with his life for his belief in peace and non-violence, is to abide by his words, to transform them into actions, and to ‘develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole.’”
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