About two months after Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th president of the United States of America was born (4 August 1961) the world stopped. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, hounded and hated by the “white masters of the world,” but loved by labor and people of color, the world over, joined the Communist Party of the United States of America (1 October 1961). Gus Hall, General Secretary of the CPUSA, wrote the following upon receiving Du Bois's application to join: “As editor, sociologist, historian, novelist, poet, publicist, lecturer, and organizer, you have made enduring contributions. Your life is a monumental example of achievement for all Americans.”

Hall, later in this letter of response points out that Du Bois joined the CPUSA in a climate of fascistic, ultra right laws: the McCarran and Smith Acts. Hall also indicated that: “This was symbolic of the personal courage and heroic exercise of social responsibility.” It was in such an atmosphere, although two years later, that four little children, at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama were bombed, killing Addie Mae Collins (14), Denise McNair (11), Carole Robertson (14), and Cynthia Wesley (14). On that infamous, odious Sunday, the 15th of September 1963, Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Frank Cash and Robert Chambliss of the United Klans of America, planted deadly dynamite at the church, injuring many and killing the four girls.

Many activists have remarked how after these murders of these innocents, the international and national mood and movement for human, civil, child and labor rights became inexorable. These murders took place about two weeks after the famous 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. The deaths of these four little girls, occurring at the meeting place of human and civil rights leaders like MLK and Reverend Doctor Fred Shuttlesworth, happened while activists from the South Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) pushed for a voting drive for citizens in Birmingham.

The national and international political climate were aflame. The Milwaukee Sentinel opined, "For the rest of the nation, the Birmingham church bombing should serve to goad the conscience. The deaths...in a sense are on the hands of each of us.”

Racist, fascist Governor George Wallace offered a $5,000 reward to catch the Klansmen, but MLK wired him saying, "the blood of four little children … is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama  the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder.”

How comparable this is to the recent Tucson, Arizona murder of innocent citizens and a child?

MLK spoke at the funeral of almost 10,000 people, white and Black.

Many say that the national and international outrage spurred the famous 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Today, in this MLK holiday season with the four children of MLK grown and one passed on along with him, we recount the legacy of MLK.

One of the largest MLK celebrations kicked off its festivities with a speech by the Honorable Greg Mathis in St. Louis, Missouri under the aegis of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. State Celebration Commission For the State of Missouri. The judge pointed out how the selfless career of MLK started fighting for public education for all Americans, and ended defending public workers in this area. The judge made it clear that we must continue these critical fights, to protect human dignity and labor.

The four little girls at 16th Baptist never had a chance to protect their dignity and labor.

The dream of MLK – "I have a dream that one day my four 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” – has yet to be fulfilled. The same fascistic right extreme menace stalks the nation, leaving death and terrorism in its wake, while politicians like Palin, with the support of the ultra-right and big money, lead our nation to the lawlessness of fascism.

We, nationally and internationally have to unify, leading our nation as we did in 1963, to protect all our children to whom we owe the dream of MLK. Just as labor, peace, civil and human rights leaders like MLK and W.E.B. Du Bois mobilized against the infamous Klan fascism and the notorious McCarran and Smith Acts then, we need to mobilize against the atrocities in Tucson, Arizona and Citizens United and Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project decisions.

We cannot protect our crumbling city and state fiscal health and educational systems, physical communication and transportation systems, and the public jobs they necessitate throughout the country without full mobilization for international unity and voting rights to protect both public education and public jobs, for four children and all children now and in the future.

We must not let the children die in vain.