Martin Luther King Jr. himself visited Highlander, in 1957, in recognition of the role it had played in the formation of the civil rights movement. With Parks sitting in the audience, he declared, “It is ultimately more honorable to walk in dignity than ride in humiliation.” He noted the importance of the recent Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which mandated the integration of schools and, by extension, other public institutions. He decried the recent resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and predicted a long struggle ahead. But he also imparted a message of solidarity: “Organized
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