{"id":1238,"date":"2016-01-18T11:14:07","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T11:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/?p=1238"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:09:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T12:09:09","slug":"happy-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/2016\/01\/18\/happy-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

How often is “Happy Birthday”<\/a>, the song by Stevie Wonder, played to celebrate people’s birthdays? \u00a0It features quite a lot on Radio 2 … \u00a0but how many people realise the song was written by Wonder in 1981 as part of the campaign to have Martin Luther King celebrated in a national holiday? \u00a0Ronald Reagan established such a day in 1983 and ever since King’s birthday has been remembered in the USA on the third Monday of January – today this year!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Ronald_Reagan_Martin_Luther_King_Day_signing\"
Ronald Reagan and Coretta Scott King at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day signing ceremony.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But, as we have often said, \u00a0we should remember all those who fought (and those who died) \u00a0for civil rights in the USA in addition to King. \u00a0In many ways he was just the spokesman for a wider movement – a spokesman who for most of the time at least was acceptable to to whites, and is now celebrated as an American leader. Others are often not remembered, but they played a key role in challenging the system of\u00a0segregation\u00a0and discrimination that was so widespread – and some of which survives. We do well to remember Wonder’s lyrics:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

I just never understood
\nHow a man who died for good
\nCould not have a day that would
\nBe set aside for his recognition<\/p>\n

‘Cause it should never be
\nJust ’cause some cannot see
\nThe dream as clear as he
\nThat they should make it become an illusion<\/p>\n

And we all know everything
\nThat he stood for time will bring
\nFor in peace our hearts will sing
\nThanks to Martin Luther King<\/p>\n

Happy birthday – Happy birthday to you!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How often is “Happy Birthday”, the song by Stevie Wonder, played to celebrate people’s birthdays? \u00a0It features quite a lot on Radio 2 … \u00a0but how many people realise the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,765,386,381,241,268,768,772,399,766],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-african-american-history","tag-american","tag-american-history","tag-american-studies","tag-christian-oconnell-2","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-modern","tag-neil-wynn","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-uog"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3281,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions\/3281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}