I’M FROM HEMPSTEAD,LONG ISLAND AND IN THE SPIRIT OF MLK DAY On May 12, 1965 the Congress of Racial Equality organized Martin Luther King’s tour through Lakeview, Inwood, Long Beach, Rockville Centre and Hempstead in Long Island. It was one of several trips Martin Luther King made to Long Island throughout the 1960s to garner support for civil rights and to raise money. During King’s 1965 tour, he asked to see living conditions among black people on Long Island. Mel Jackson of Hempstead, now president of the Leadership Training Institute, helped show Martin Luther King areas of substandard housing in Hempstead. He said King saw homes in which “raw sewage seeped up into the floor.” And in Rockville Centre, King saw where local activists said blacks were being pushed out by urban renewal. Newsday reported that crowds of 500 to 800 people greeted him at every stop. King climbed out of his car and made brief speeches. King’s Long Island tour culminated that night in a speech at the old Island Garden Arena in West Hempstead, which drew about 5,000 people. HERE IS 2 PHOTOS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING RIDING ON WILKOW DRIVE AND OAKLAND STREET IN MY HOOD HEMPSTEAD. THIS SAME STREET IN THE 1970S WOULD BE RENAMED MARTIN LUTHER KING DRIVE. HAPPY MLK DAY EVERYBODY.