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Historic Martin Luther King Home To Become A National Landmark
Historic Martin Luther King Home To Become A National Landmark
Photo Credit: Flip Schulke / Corbis

Watch Martin Luther King Predict Election Of A Black President In Rare Interview

A recently unearthed clip finds Martin Luther King Jr. speaking on the possibility of a black person becoming president of the United States of America in the "not too distant future."

READ: Oklahoma City Workers Caught On Tape Calling Martin Luther King Day 'Ni**er Day'

The archived video, which comes from Atlanta television station WSB-TV, shows King speaking at  a press conference on April 25, 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church on the 1968 presidential race. At the time, some newspapers and activists had voiced their support for a presidential campaign from King, who announced earlier in the interview he would do no such thing.

"I do not want to give the impression that I feel a Negro is not capable of not being president. There are many Negroes who are capable this day, and were capable yesterday and day before yesterday and many days in the past," King said. "But because of prejudices and narrow-mindedness, Negroes have been held out of the political arena and certainly held out of the presidency. But I do think that the day will come in the not-too-distant future when the Negro vote itself will be powerful enough to be a coalition with liberals and the white community and thereby elect a Negro president of the United States."

Four decades after his untimely death on April 4, 1968, Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States of America.

READ: Here's Five Ways Artists Honored Martin Luther King Jr.

Today (Monday) marks MLK Day and although people throughout the country and the world are taking the day to celebrate the iconic civil rights activist's legacy, some are not. Case in point, two city workers from Warner, Oklahoma, who were caught on tape calling the American federal holiday "Ni**er Day."

The recording is of employees Joe Swimmer and Matt McLean, and the two of them discussing if they get a day off for MLK Day.

"Do we get Martin Luther King Day off?" Swimmer asks, to which McLean responds "No ni**er day for us."

"We're off for ni**er day?" Swimmer responds, and can be later heard saying "I'm not celebrating ni**er day."

McLean then proceeds to say "We just call it JER day. James Earl Ray," referring to the man who assassinated MLK.

"That's what we always celebrate…not that we don't like black people," McLean adds after laughter from other men in the room.

Both Swimmer and McLean resigned following the incident.

Source: WSB-TV