The VOICE

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Now the people's voices are heard as one voice.
They have made their choice,
And together sing:
"We hear your voice,
MARTIN LUTHER KING."

DATE STAMP ISSUED 1979 PRICE 15 cents  January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King, Father of Civil Rights. King led the biggest protest demonstration for civil rights in the history the United States, the 1963 march on Washington. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership of the non-violent struggle for racial equality. King said, :I have a dream that 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." He was and is truly "The Voice"

United the people would sing songs
Of so many unjust wrongs.
Holding hands and marching in unity,
Demanding freedoma at any penalty

DATE STAMP ISSUED 1988 PRICE 22cents 1871 - 1938 James Weldon Johnson, noted lawyer, educator and writer whose composition "Lift Every Voice and Sing" became the African American National Anthem. A verse: "Shadowed beneath Thy land, may we forever stand, True to our God, True to our native land."

The voice pierces hands that cover ears.
Opening minds closed for years,
Reminding the old who try to forget,
And teaching those still younger yet,
Not to forget,
Not to forget.

DATE STAMP ISSUED 1990 PRICE 25 cents 1862 - 1931 Ida B. Wells, journalist, lecturer and civil rights leader. She was born into slavery in 1862 and was educated as a teacher. She later became a reporter and spoke out against the lynching of blacks. In 1909, she and W.E.B. Dubois established the N.A.A.C.P. Wells said, "Not until the Negro rises in his might and takes a hand in resenting such cold blooded murders, if he has to burn up whole towns, will a halt be called to cold blooded lynching."

The voice echoes in churches and streets,
Teaching love to everyone it meets.
The voice carries on the wind
And says in the end,
"God will win, my friend."

DATE STAMP ISSUED 1978 PRICE 13 cents  1820(21) - 1913 Harriet Tubman was called "The Moses of her people." She became known as "The Conductor" because she helped more than 300 slaves escape to freedom in the years before the Civil War. During that conflict, Tubman was a Union nurse, spy and scout. She helped free more than 700 slaves during one military campain, and was the first black woman to appear on a United States stamp. She joined Susan B. Anthony in the fight for women's right to vote and rights for the elderly. On one of her many escapes, she said to a man who would not go on, "Live north or die here, no turning back from freedom." As long as others were not free, she believed she could not be free.

The voice bears a message to remember,
From January of life to the death of December,
Remember,
Remember,
Remember.

DATE STAMP ISSUED 1979 PRICE 15 cents  1731 - 1806 Benjamin Banneker, a noted mathematician, inventor, astronomer and journalist (Gazetteer). He published an almanac which made a powerful case for the intellectual equality of blacks. Bannecker was one of the six surveyers who helped lay out the boundaries of the District of Columbia in 1791. "I consider this Negro as a fresh proof that the power of the mind is disconnected from the color of the skin," said Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States. A letter on August 19, 1871 to Thomas Jefferson from Bannecker said, "One universal Father hath given being to us all ... and endowed us all with the same faculties; and that, however variable we may be in society or religion, however deversified in situation or colour, we are all of the same family and stand in the same relation to Him."