VOA常速英语2019--2020年马丁·路德·金日（在线收听）

On the third Monday of each January, Americans honor the memory of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King, a Baptist minister from the southern state of Alabama, was a leader in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, advocating social change through non-violent means. On January 15th, he would have celebrated his ninety first birthday.

每年1月的第三个星期一，美国人都要纪念马丁·路德·金博士。马丁·路德·金博士是南方阿拉巴马州浸信会教堂的牧师，是美国民权运动的领袖，主张通过非暴力手段进行社会变革。1月15日，是第90个马丁·路德·金日。

Believing that "change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle," Dr. King organized and participated in mass-action boycotts, sit-ins, peaceful marches and other non-violent acts of civil disobedience.

相信“改变不会随着不可避免的车轮滚滚而来，而是通过不断的奋斗而来，”金博士组织和参与了大规模的抵制、静坐、和平游行和其他非暴力温和反抗行动。

Dr. King once stated that "an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law." And so, activists sometimes deliberately, but peacefully and respectfully, broke laws aimed at segregating the white citizenry from the non-white, thus hoping to bring attention to the inherent unfairness of such legislation.

金博士曾经说过，“一个人违反了法律，良心告诉他这是不公正的，他心甘情愿地接受监禁的惩罚，以唤起社会对其不公正的良心，这实际上是对法律的最高尊重。”因此，活动人士有时会故意地，但以和平和尊重的方式，违反旨在将白人公民与非白人公民隔离开来的法律，从而希望引起人们对此类立法固有的不公平的关注。

Thus, when a black seamstress named Rosa Parks broke the law in Montgomery, Alabama, by refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, and subsequently was jailed for her transgression, her plight generated national attention and increasing sympathy for her cause across the country.

因此，当一位名叫罗莎·帕克斯的黑人女裁缝在阿拉巴马州蒙哥马利市违反法律，在公交车上拒绝为一名白人乘客让座，并因此被判入狱时，她的遭遇引起了全国的关注，全国上下对她的所作所为引发越来越多的同情。

Dr. King’s, and the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest achievement came in 1964, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act which outlawed segregation in public places, as well as employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender or national origin. The Civil Rights Act spawned the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which forbids racial discrimination in voting, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing and financing for the purchase of a home, based on race and national origin.

马丁·路德·金博士和民权运动最伟大的成就是1964年通过的《民权法案》，该法案禁止在公共场所进行种族隔离，以及基于种族、肤色、宗教、性别或国籍的就业歧视。《民权法案》催生了1965年的《投票权法案》和1968年的《公平住房法案》。1965年的《投票权法案》禁止种族歧视，1968年的《公平住房法案》禁止基于种族和国籍在住房和购房融资方面的歧视。

Dr. King was thirty nine years old when he died by an assassin's bullet on April 4th, 1968. But his legacy lives on. In the fullness of time, all segregationist laws were repealed, and discrimination is a legally punishable – and punished – offence.

1968年4月4日，39岁的金博士死于暗杀者的子弹。但他的成果仍然存在。随着时间的推移，所有的种族隔离法律都被废除了，歧视在法律上是一种惩罚和惩罚的罪行。

Dr. King's life is well summed up in his own words: "The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."

金博士的一生可以用他自己的话来很好地总结:“重要的是生命的质量，而不是长度。”