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TechnoratiNEW YORK - Nearly 40 years after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., some say his legacy is being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message.
"Everyone knows - even the smallest kid knows about Martin Luther King - can say his most famous moment was that 'I have a dream' speech," said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo. "No one can go further than one sentence. All we know is that this guy had a dream. We don't know what that dream was."
King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues at the time of his death. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War and was in Memphis when he was killed in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.
King had come a long way from the crowds who cheered him at the 1963 March on Washington, when he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation" - and when he pronounced "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire who has written a recently published book on King.
"He was considered by many to be a pariah," Sitkoff said.
But he took on issues of poverty and militarism because he considered them vital "to make equality something real and not just racial brotherhood but equality in fact," Sitkoff said.
Scholarly study of King hasn't translated into the popular perception of him and the civil rights movement, said Richard Greenwald, professor of history at Drew University.
"We're living increasingly in a culture of top 10 lists, of celebrity biopics which simplify the past as entertainment or mythology," he said. "We lose a view on what real leadership is by compressing him down to one window."
That does a disservice to both King and society, said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University.
By freezing him at that point, by putting him on a pedestal of perfection that doesn't acknowledge his complex views, "it makes it impossible both for us to find new leaders and for us to aspire to leadership," Harris-Lacewell said.
She believes it's important for Americans in 2008 to remember how disliked King was before his death in April 1968.
"If we forget that, then it seems like the only people we can get behind must be popular," Harris-Lacewell said. "Following King meant following the unpopular road, not the popular one."
In becoming an icon, King's legacy has been used by people all over the political spectrum, said Glenn McNair, associate professor of history at Kenyon College.
He's been part of the 2008 presidential race, in which Barack Obama could be the country's first black president. Obama has invoked King, and Sen. John Kerry endorsed Obama by saying "Martin Luther King said that the time is always right to do what is right."
Not all the references have been received well. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton came under fire when she was quoted as saying King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
King has "slipped into the realm of symbol that people use and manipulate for their own purposes," McNair said.
Harris-Lacewell said that is something people need to push back against.
"It's not OK to slip into flat memory of who Dr. King was, it does no justice to us and makes him to easy to appropriate," she said. "Every time he gets appropriated, we have to come out and say that's not OK. We do have the ability to speak back."
© 2008 Associated Press
57 Comments so far
Show AllI just saw Barbara Ehrenreicht piece on this topic. She makes the same point that the 'hero-worship' of Dr. King is obscuring the large movement of many, many, many thousands of people who came together to create the change that happened in the civil rights era.
And I was just reading a historian named Prof. Raphael who makes the very same point about the American Revolution. Our 'history' focuses on a few heroes\leaders and acts like they were the reason change happened. For example, he points out that Lexington and Concord and Paul Revere's ride was not the beginning of the revolution. That was the British response to the real revolution that had happened the year before.
As a part of the response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliment had passed an act that basically outlawed the democratic government that had evolved in Massachusetts. Essentially the act said that only the King's appointees and those appointed by the King's governor had power. The response of thousands of people across the state was to meet these councilors and judges at the county seats when they tried to take office and forcibly say no. These appointees were litterally met by thousands of local militiamen, armed, who forced them to resign their commissions.
That was the real Massachusetts revolution. It wasn't John Hancock or Samuel Adams or the elites of Boston doing this. It was thousands of rural farmers just saying NO. The conflict at Lexington and Concorde was the British General sending troops out to try to seize some of these arms that the militias had been gathering as a first step towards restoring the King's rule.
Yet, most history books just provide the fictional account of Paul Revere's ride and act like the Revolution started at Lexington and Concorde and just ignore this mass popular movement. In exactly the same way they also try to ignore the mass movement of the Civil Rights era and act like Dr. King was the reason it all happened.
This doesn't seem accidental to me. The message to American citizens from these historical revisions is that they should not try to change things themselves. Instead we should just wait for another 'hero' to emerge and create change for us. But that's not how change happens. What we've seen historically is that its these risings of mass movements of people that create change.
Don't wait for a hero. Don't wait for the next Dr. King. Just do what really happened in the late 50's and early 60's and start organizing and fighting for change yourselves.
"By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered,"
So, some things never change. By trying to take on issues of poverty and war, the corporate media wouldn't support him and the Democratic President and leadership wouldn't support him. Surprise, Surprise.
I wish someone would point the latter part of that out everytime some Democrat candidate tries to claim MLK's legacy as their own. Hey Hillary ... Hey Obama ... if MLK was so great, how come a Democratic Party that controlled the White House, the Congress and every Supreme Court nomination in that decade still wouldn't support him.
...he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation"
Which is exactly what we are missing today. A leader with integrity and morals. Not 'religion' but morals.
RE: - I think that King's legacy is being lost in large part, ironically, because of the hero worship of King.
"Ironically" or intentionally. If one were to measure aspects of King's legacy based on how threatening it is to the Status Quo, one would have a good indication which aspects of King's legacy we know the most and the least about.
Like you said.
Then again, you see King's ghosts in movements that are in the spirit of King's beliefs but expanded in ways King never envisioned. King was born too early to be for gay rights, but you see an echo of King in Khaki's words:
"No matter how you slice it, the denial of human rights and dignity (call for) a jihad, a struggle against oppression and injustice," - El-Farouk Khaki
For those who want to review the 4-4-67 speech, I posted the text on my blog. I never have luck with audio and visual. And sometimes I have trouble with links, but here goes:
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2008/01/martin-luther-king-against-vietn...
Gentlefolk: (continued)
To complete my thought...
When there are actually people who can look you in the eye and state without equivocation that George W. Bush has done and is doing a good job as the President of the U.S. you cannot expect the facts of history (real history not the G W Bush/Neocon revisions of historical facts) then you need not expect much in the way of comprehension of the lives of giants like Dr. King, John F. Kennedy and the like and their effects on our lives today.
Americans have been the victims of government/corporate brainwashing and "dumbing down" over the last twenty-five years or so to the point that effective actions as citizens are almost beyond the realm of possibility.
To reverse this trend is going to be a daunting task because a generation of these "damaged" citizens is already rearing a crop of offspring who promise to be even less informed than their clueless parents.
Gentlefolk:
How can we expect a populace that allowed an absolutely amoral and moronic man like George W. Bush and his gang of neocons to steal two terms as the President of the United States to grasp any of the nuances of the ways in which historical figures like Dr. King and their actions affect the future that we live in at present.
When there are actually people who can look you in the eye and state without equivocation that George W. Bush has done and is doing a good job as the President of the U.S. you cannot expect the facts of history (real history not the G W Bush/Neocon revisions of historical facts)
I think that King's legacy is being lost in large part, ironically, because of the hero worship of King. The Civil Rights movement was NOT King. You wouldn't know that if you just listened to the press. He was part of it, a large part, he articulate their morals and outlook extremely well and was a passionate man who inspired people. However, it was the radicals that went to the South in the early part of the 20th century when the media wasn't shining the national lights on the situation like they were decades later that laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement. It was the poor black kids, who now don't organize a fraction as much as they used to, who demanded rights guaranteed to them under the constitution. It was the middle class kids who risked their life and put their well being on the line to make life better or King's people. I guarantee that King would agree. The corporate press, who viciously attacked him when he was alive, would rather people believe that great men run society and movements instead of regular people realizing the power they have to cause change. If it weren't for the regular people involved in the Civil Rights movement King would not have a holiday in his name, any more than Medgar Evers. He came along after the groundwork had been laid by regular people and took advantage of the path they created. The fact that corporations, private tyrannies who mentality King also fought against, are now involved with tributes to him says all you need to know about the situation.
RE: - As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud. / Sincerely, / Martin L. King, III
I think that this tops Oprah by a long shot - don't you think?
Edwards mentioned that he got King's son's endorsement yesterday during the CNN debate but I think that few people caught it. Surprised the pundits didn't since this should have been the big story.
RE: - Mr.King was the antithesis of American thought. Americans are competitive and tend to see life as every man for himself. They believe that the world is evil and must be kept at bay through force. They believe in American Supremacy.
Only if Bush, Cheney and Reagan define American thought. Edwards talked of kids sitting on the fence ...
What could be more ironic than a government-sanctioned holiday celebrating the life of a man terminated by that same government?
If you're unaware of the FBI, CIA, military and police involvement in the execution of MLK, please read "An Act of State" by William F. Pepper.
Nine years ago, in 1999, Pepper won the court case, essentially confirming the truth of his assertion that MLK's death was a government-sanctioned hit.
But you probably didn't hear about that on the nightly news.
One local anchorman insisted on attending the court sessions daily and was fired for it. He later won a wrongful termination court case against the local TV station and got his old job back.
So, it's not that I think the fact of the government execution of MLK is even more worthy of being remembered and more in danger of being forgotten than the fact of MLK's anti-war stance. Both are extremely important. In fact, it was most likely MLK's stance re: the Vietnam War that sealed his fate in the minds of his true killers.
Please spread the truth. What we've been unraveling here on Common Dreams and similar sites, has been going on a long time.
I can only think of how his dream has turned into the American nightmare with more poverty and war then he could even imagine! And the current president claiming to be a member of Christ's flock besides. Blows the mind!!
Jond Edwards also spoke about the 4/4/68 speech on 4/4. That is a pretty direct connection to the very aspect of king that the Corporate Media is most trying to cover up.
Oh well it is a Corporate Selection, but I would still vote for Edwards to show the Corporate Vermin that their selection process still has hic ups.
All action should be directed around media. That is the true election booth. Alternative media is no alternative unless it actively CONTESTS the "mainstream" intead of passively existing allongside it.
The current election season proves this point: the internet issues left of center, hae not made the televised debates once. We must post into the mainstream or the choir will be singing in a parallel universe. Sorry, trying to sound like a political wise man again!
What Dr. King had that most of the "left" doesn't posess anymore was an ability to rethink his views, and recognize the enemy for who and what it is. He wasn't as popular as he had been a few years before with the great U.S. middle class and even among many black Americans. But he still retained a mass following, which made him more dangerous than ever, articulating the sort of views we see posted here today. His last book "Where do we go from here?" was far more throroughgoing than the "economic stimulus" packages some so-called leaders are touting these days.
Thanks MikeBinSC, for posting the letter from Martin L. King III to John Edwards. That letter should be forwarded around the country, and I hope it will be.
I've Been To The Mountaintop — April 3, 1968
On the eve of a protest march for striking garbage workers in Memphis, Tenn., King gave this darkly prescient speech. The next day he was assassinated.
"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
Thank you Rev. King, for giving many hope, for being an example of non-violence, an advocate of peace, and for gracing us with your divine presence.
Rest in peace.
For those of you who still doubt the sincerity of John Edwards, please take a few minutes to read the letter below from Martin Luther King, III that so eloquently expresses why John is running.
January 20, 2008
The Honorable John R. Edwards
410 Market Street
Suite 400
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Dear Senator Edwards:
It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father's legacy. On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.
There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father's legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.
I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.
You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don't have lobbyists in Washington and they don't get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.
I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.
From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.
I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.
So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.
Sincerely,
Martin L. King, III
Perhaps there has been a very purposeful lack of the real MLK made "public", as a method to sanitize the inherent revolutionary gestalt it carries, to dull its blade?
Perhaps history is doing exactly what is expected of it, to "lose the legacy" and to forget the passion at its heart.
If the 'powers than overwhelm us' could put MLK's legacy into the deepest salt mine, they would, and seal it up forever.
For heaven's sake MLK got the black history month, that is more than he could have hoped for. What else do they want?
"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
--Thomas Jefferson
The mainstream media does this because anti war messages are considered an improper environment for selling products.
The MLK holiday is a travesty. Dr. King in no way represents or speaks for the American people. This holiday is simply political correctness and appeasement. It is meaningless. MLK should be honored when his ideas are also honored.
Sadly, (and perhaps somewhat intentionally) Martin Luther King has been reduced to a postage stamp -- frozen in image and re-framed. His meaning overtaken and dumbed down by PR people. And the visionary leadership that he represented is alien and unknown to the current America as is the wilderness and the ways of nature that truly govern us. His leadership has been supplanted by flatland, corporate board room managership that has no clue that office windows in buildings were once something that could be opened to experience real, fresh air and fresh thinking.
These managers who now govern know nothing about how vision is the birthing ground for the realities we create. No, they just re-frame it as "fairy tales" in order to further steep us in the hoplessness of transcending and transforming this absurd, "business as usual" state we find ourselves. And instead of hope, their cheerleading broadcaster now repeat and repeat stories of fear -- all with the message that the only thing we have to fear is not being afraid enough.
That doesn't seem to work too well.
"Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.ssc.msu.edu."
Lizard:
Amazing how things can be turned around, or spun enough to create
an image that is not true.
A War Hero is somebody that saves the lives of innocent children, women
and the elderly.
Somebody that got shot down is not a war hero. Even though the evil forces
of the War Ministry (Why keep calling it Defense anyway?) do everything to
get the approval of the lesser gifted americans like yellow ribbons with 'support
our murderers' and great wild west like stories about military bravery in times of
widespread desertion. Military people need to suffer asphyxiation to give the
peace loving folks like Dr. King and the majority of Americans clean air to breathe.
In Germany in the Seventies there was a slogan that went like this:
Imagine there is a war and nobody attends it.
Enough words for the week.
Watch 'The Secret' if You haven't done so already.
Aloha
It's Just Karma
What legacy? If there is one, it is that he fought for equality for black people. Nothing else is remembered. Any progressive idea he may have voiced has gone unnoticed except by those who don't need to know because they already do. It isn't the leaders that matter,it is the people, and they are not like MLK at all.
Sorry for reading the article after posting my piece.
Nevertheless I realize it is the perfect match.
Dr. King was an insurgent, a dissident, a peace protester,
A White House Critic, A Military Industrial Complex Critic
And that was basically the nails in his coffin.
The Man died because he spoke the truth.
The Inconvenient Truth of 1963 to 1968.
I will get Dennis protective gear that works, not like the ones in Iraq.
Just to make sure the CIA has a hard time assassinating him.
Mr.King was the antithesis of American thought. Americans are competitive and tend to see life as every man for himself. They believe that the world is evil and must be kept at bay through force. They believe in American Supremacy. George is a failure because he hasn't run the business well. His wars don't work, he let oil prices rise, and he allowed people to lose their homes. Things are more expensive and we are in debt, personally, and as a country. That is why the people don't like George. What do they want? Somebody who wins wars decisively, keeps prices down, and manages the economy such that people don't lose their homes. They figure McCain is the answer because winning wars is the most important thing and they're sure he can deliver. He's a war hero!.
I don't know if this violates anything but I just received a letter from Dennis Kucinich.
That is our next President. Nobody, I repeat nobody has the brains and a subscription
to common sense as he does.
Dennis Or The Highway.
Check this out:
Dennis Kucinich - Dennis4President.com
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
the legacy remembered,
the message that should not be forgotten
The homage that Americans pay today to the inspiring life and lasting legacy of Dr. King is a fitting tribute to this leader who spoke so eloquently of peace, of social justice, and of equal rights under the law and under the moral covenant that established and guides this great nation. But, as we survey the grim realities of today, across this country and around the world, that rightful homage also has the somber ring of a faint and distant eulogy for a man and a message from another time.
That other time that we remember and honor was then. But, more than ever, it is also now.
In his speech at Riverside Church in New York City, on April 4, 1967, Dr. King spoke of one war that was destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Vietnam.
The Vietnam War resulted in the deaths of 4 million Vietnamese civilians in a nation of about 40 million - 10% of the total population of Vietnam. Americans lost 58,202 soldiers in that war. And in hard, cold numbers, the Vietnam War cost the United States the equivalent of $662 billion in today's dollars.
So far, today, this no-end-in-sight war against Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million innocent Iraqis in a nation of 25 million. Four thousand of our best and bravest have died, and nearly 29,000 have been wounded. In hard, cold numbers, the Iraq War will cost the United States more than $2 trillion.
What would Dr. King say today? What would his message be to the President, to the U.S. Congress, and to the American people? It would be, I deeply believe, the same as it was more than 30 years ago: Iraq is a war that is destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Iraq.
And, it was only two years ago that the leadership of the Democratic Party, without invoking Dr. King but aligning itself with the powerful principles that he espoused, promised an end to the abuse of political power and an end to the war that was devastating the people of two nations. And Americans, believing that promise that we would "be free at last" from the policies that morally and economically enslaved this nation and unrepentantly took control of another, elected a new Democratic leadership in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
Tragically, in the two years since, nothing has changed. The policies of this President persist and prevail. The Congress yields and subjugates itself time and time again. And the powerful, righteous, and universal message of Dr. King has been forgotten.
Dr. King's concluding remarks in his Riverside Church speech called for an end to the disintegration of humanity brought about by war: "Somehow this madness must end," he implored.
It is not in our power to bring Dr. King back, but it is within our power to resurrect his spirit in our daily lives and in the policies of the government that we elect to represent and lead us. He demonstrated throughout his entire life that social and economic justice are achieved not through compromising what we believe, but rather, committing to what we believe – whatever the odds.
In this crucial year for the future of our nation and the future of our world, today is the day to remember Dr. King's words, embrace his spirit, and fortify ourselves with the message that he left for us.
It is time, once again, to ask what we can do to forge ahead – in our votes, in our support, and in everything we do -- to reach that place where his words, his strength, and his optimism become more than a legacy. They become the policy and mission of this nation: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."
Dennis Kucinich
Submitted in great admiration by It's Just Karma
O ROE
it's still not working. i just get 'cannot display webpage'.
sorry seems I messed up first link and other ran over if I could I would use HTML sorry
http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~sw/mlk/brksInc.htm
On this somber day we reflect underneath are two links one speech content only other speech with audio. This speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Is rarely
quoted nor read. Take a few and see that the Dr. had hoped by doing what he always did with the passion and humanity of such a great man hoping it would never come to that again.
Beyond Vietnam : A Time To Break Silence
By Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
4 April 1967
Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On April 4, 1967 at a meeting of Clergy and Concerned Laity at Riverside Curch in NYC.
http:www.ssc.msu.edu/~sw/mlk/brksInc.htm
Above no audio, speech content only
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
Above w/audio. Please try to remember these past 7 1/2 years that destroyed our country and see the relevance in Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words and please pass them on.
One year to the day of the speech so eloquently delivered the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. MLK RIP. 4 April 1968
t
You are all so MALADJUSTED!!!
I always wonder if, to convince Reagan to declare MLK Day a national holiday, his handlers outlined to him a strategy of long-term depoliticizing of MLK, because St. Reagan, proto-fascist that he was, was famously opposed to honoring King.
In any event, I've been struck within the past decade or so by the number of Blacks who insist on emphasizing only the fact that King was a Christian, and they emphasize the word Christian to imply that King would approve of present-day fundamentalist Christian attacks on gay unions and abortion. At most of the MLK Day demonstrations I've been to in recent years, the tone is dominated by these types of Christian speakers, who seem to be doing their part to push MLK's image farther and farther to the right. As if whites' repackaging of King wasn't bad enough.
Non violence is still unpopular in today's world - where the old lies about warrior heroics continue to shore up nation states which now threaten the future of the human species by just existing.
Bush being compressed down to one barred window will make good history. Better still, extrude the f*kr.
Seriously, the bad characters in history receive similar treatment. There's even more to be gained by accurate reflections of them.
In this country if a person gets enough power and people are listening, and if he is for peace and against unnecessary war and the slaughter of human beings for profit, he is assassinated.
Yes, MLK had a dream, but not all dreams become reality. MLK had a dream, but now we have a virtual nightmare in America from which people have not yet waken up. His legacy may be lost to the American people, but it will be forever sempiternal in history.
jjpeter 3:35: You have spoken such profound thoughtswords !!!!!
It is worth repeating:
"Such an experience is reserved for a very few, who would have the courage and karma, to go into this world of pain, loss and betrayal without reservation, without fear - to serve mankind and turn us away from the path of hatred, bigotry and enslavement".
Stephen V. Riley : Indeed. Before Dr. King began his daring journey into the lions pit, he prayed fervently. After a time, he felt a distinct presence in his room, and heard the words, paraphrasing here; "fear not my son, for I am with you, have always been with you and will always be with you."
Dr. King was a modern day 13th disciple, and like the original 11 (Judas was gone, and Paul was yet to go to Damascus) who gathered together in HIS name, and upon whom Jesus reappeared and confered upon them the Holy Ghost (the state of cosmic consciousness), from that day forward, he, as they, lead a life unafraid, regardless of the violent acts what would soon be carried out against him and his followers.
Such an experience is reserved for a very few, who would have the courage and karma, to go into this world of pain, loss and betrayal without reservation, without fear - to serve mankind and turn us away from the path of hatred, bigotry and enslavement.
Dr. Martin Luther King knew the mind of Christ. So did Mahatma Gandhi. They were both considered "dangerous men" who threatened the established "elite" economic order.
So few Christians seek to know the mind of Christ, as most Christians prefer an innocuous faith with the "safe" Jesus, rather than a radical counter-culture faith with the "dangerous" Jesus.
MLK's greatest legacy, imo, is his understanding, which was maturing just before he was cut down, that war no longer can be tolerated as a means to decide disputes between nations -- that is, if the human race is to survive.
And what I find so maddening is how many US Black people have bought into the MLK-revisionism. Case in point - please go here and view these video's.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08021/850720-51.stm
Among the four black-entrepreneur, "creative class" and media types, the word "war" is not mentioned.
The only ordinary wage-earning black worker in the videos was the store salesperson. Thankfully, she at least mentioned that MLK just might have had an issue with Bush's war.
For a beautiful rendition of Dr. King's last speeches go to "Democracy Now" of today. A riveting experience. Each reference to the destructiveness to the Vietnam War, the Iraq War can be substituted.
Thank You, Amy, for this memorial.
Dr King was tolerated until he started speaking out on the Viet Nam war, at that point, he was messing with the MIC, and now that, that was not to be allowed.
JFK, MLK, RFK It all started in '63
If John Edwards was winning primaries, he would be next.
Signed,
The 63 Junta, GHW Bush presiding
I posted this on one of the other MLK threads but is more applicable here. So…
What a beautiful man that MLK.
What angers me is this…
That MLK's message has been reduced to a sound bite ("I have a Dream") and relegated to the same status as Columbus, and George Washington, a day off of school.
Whoop-de-doo.
It seems that by mainstream-izng MLK and putting him on the same level as Columbus it marginalizes the truth who he is or was. We celebrate Columbus day without knowing the truth as we celebrate MLK with out knowing the truth.
Today he would be lambasted daily on the News (Propaganda) for his extremist point of view. if not label him a terrorist.
For the most part MLK has been de-politicized.
The above article is as pertinent today as it was then. If not more. Because truth is always timely. And now the lies are so think our brains are chocking.
But enjoy the day off kids.
Of course it's being lost. That's exactly what the people who control the military and white house want to happen. The truth is their biggest enemy.
Their days in power are coming to an end now. Soon, they will fall and like humpty dumpty, all of their horses and all of their men, won't be able to get them up and in power again!!
:-)
Dr. King was a moderate. He and his fellow ministers drove the SNCC nuts with his forbearance. But, when he did take action, he took it with the full force of his community behind him.
Now we have a rotten government, a war or two or three, and racially charged prison and hiring practices.
Reach out to anyone who might possibly be of good heart. This includes many social conservatives, but not certain corrupt religious leaders. Hold back on the vanguard business, ego trips are fun but they do too little. Take the time to get the full community to action. If you're willing to cross a police line, good. Now cross a few social lines too.
Dr. King indeed was a complex figure. I once was a guest lecturer at a prestigious college commemorating his accomplishments but also highlighting the challenges he faced as both an African American and an intellectual. His dialectic is brilliant yet at the same time challenging to accurately interpret. Nonetheless, to me he always will be one of the greatest historic figures in U.S. history.
Sadly, America and its so-called free market has become a culture of death. A haven for the rich, a blight for the poor. Change your ways mad country!
Dr. Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers.
Mr. King is dead and therefore not dangerous. It hardly matters what he thought, lots of people think like him. His perspective is not shared by almost any Americans. Americans do not see the US as the greatest source of destruction on earth. Dr. King did. When Americans think that way, we can say that his words mattered.
The views of Dr. Martin Luther King are not necessarily complex, but they are quite alien to the present American way of thinking. That is what leadership is about: taking new roads, and taking a principled stand that may be at odds with the conventional wisdom.
Many people have continued to elaborate on 'the dream' that Martin Luther King had, but the platform of people who are still paying attention has shrunk dramatically. Just read Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Arundhati Roy, Cindy Sheehan.
Martin Luther King's ideas are alive and well if you are willing to listen.
Meanwhile the Bush Administration gets to write it's own history with MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!
Martin Luther King set an example that is worth re-visiting:
It takes more than words alone to bring change.It takes activism, and courage.
Few of us have the skills necessary to (for example)organize a sizable march, even though this is something we really need. Most of us can participate in a local march. All of us have the ability to do SOMETHING. You can help speak for those whose voices aren't being heard. Take the time to write to your legislators to speak your mind about the (current) war, the abandonment of our poor/massive tax cuts to corporations (which has, indeed, spurred job creation...in India, South America, Korea, anywhere but the US!) When people can organize, they have the power to shine the public spotlight on an issue, which forces our politicians to actually deal with that issue.
The bottom line, as we saw from M. L. King's example, is that change doesn't just happen. It requires action.
Incidentally, I'm old enough to remember when MLK was alive, and I do remember that he was widely regarded as anything from
a total lunatic to a radical threat. He was often subject to ridicule, and viewed with contempt/hate.
The couldn't co-opt him while he was alive, so they killed him.
Then he couldn't protest when they co-opted him and made him into an Uncle Tom mealy-mouthed cartoon character.
In Honor of Citizen Dr. Martin Luther King's Birthday
Three Political Conversations:
I can conceive of no better occasion than today on Martin Luther King's birthday to demonstrate in a small speech what this great citizen means to me.
Among all the political musing I have taken in, and could choose from, I have taken together three political conversations that I have come across recently from my casual readings and study in history and literature and not in the media.
Thomas Jefferson's "drunken woman" and "the wearied soldier."
The first of these conversations is a rare colloquy that comes to us from Thomas Jefferson and is contained in a letter to a Maria Cosway. In my effort to know more about this great advocate of equality, the natural rights of man, the sovereignty of the people, the right of revolution I found this written conversation he has between his "head" and "heart" to be the most revealing of Jefferson's values and the most indelible of all his letters. Here he is at his educated and literate best in order to impress and he goes all out to woo a lady.
But to set the historical stage first I will take a few quotes from letters to a Charles Bellini, John Banister, Jr. and James Madison that preceded this colloquy by a year. This background and insight into Jefferson's thinking and stay in France will all end up wrapped into this confessional love letter a year latter. One can easily imagine that if Maria was not already married this letter would have been instead a proposal.
To Charles Bellini Jefferson shares that he has been comparing the happiness of the European and France's poor with not just America's poor "but the degree of happiness which is enjoyed in America by every class." Indeed, Jefferson finds the European classes to be, "much, very much inferior," compared to "the tranquil permanent felicity with which domestic society in America blesses most of its inhabitant's…" With Mr. Bannister he sees disadvantages to sending America youth to Europe for education. The student "acquires a fondness for European luxury and dissipation and contempt for the simplicity of his own country; he is fascinated with the privileges of the European aristocrats..." Finally, with affection in a missive to James Madison, Jefferson gives an analysis of the issues of the poor and concludes that the property "of this country is absolutely con-centered in a very few hands," and where according to Jefferson, "formality, ostentation and luxury were always found together." Results of post feudal society definitely were not to Jefferson's liking, nor for American society by Jefferson's comparison.
Now in the colloquy between his head and heart we find that on two separate occasions that Jefferson admits that he too has almost been taken in by the aristocratic lifestyle and that his "head" has made him do wrong. What about the "poor wearied soldier… with that pack on his back that begged us to let him get up behind our chariot," Heart reminds. Head has calculated that "the road is full of soldiers, and that if all should be taken up our horses would fail in their journey. We drove on therefore." Realizing that a wrong had been committed Heart counters "that though we cannot relieve all the distressed we should relieve as many as we can." (My emphasis) Unable to return and find the "poor wearied soldier," Heart laments "and from that moment to this I could never find him out to ask his forgiveness."
And what asks Heart about the poor woman that was seeking a charity in Philadelphia? "You whispered that she looked like a drunkard and that half a dollar was enough to give her for the ale-house." But, "when I sought her out afterwards, and did what I should have done at first, you know that she employed the money immediately towards placing her child at school."
In this debate the heart wins out. In Thomas Jefferson's America all are to be counted, to be heard out and to be relieved as we can. Cold calculation of the head will never win out in the end in with our fellow citizens.
Werner Heisenberg's "National Socialist student" and "Max Planck."
My next political conversation, which I found very topical for today, comes from Physics and Beyond, Encounters and Conversations by the famous German physicist Werner Heisenberg. In chapter 12 of Revolution and Student Life we come upon two revealing colloquies, one with a National Socialist student and one with the father of German science, Max Planck. In the subtext Heisenberg sees, like the great period of change after the middle ages, the results of great technical change and upheaval taking place that is leading some nations to war.
A National Socialist student finds Professor Heisenberg who graciously grants time for and takes questions from this student who soon "pours his heart out." "Why are you so offish towards the movement?" This sets off a great extensive give and take on assessment of political objectives that ends with Heisenberg countering the students "New Germany" and "more foes, more hero's" position with: "I am firmly convinced that we must never judge political movements by their aims. Now when it comes to means, you National Socialists are no different from the Communists; the leaders of both movements have clearly lost faith in the persuasive force of their own ideas. Hence both leave me quite unmoved except for the fact that I am sadly convinced that both will bring down misfortune on Germany." During the weeks following this conversation university life only became more intolerable because of greater political interference by the Nazi authorities. Jewish faculty and colleagues were being dismissed so Heisenberg sought out an interview with Max Planck.
Right off Max says, "You have come to get my political advice on a political questions but I am afraid I can no longer advise you. I see no hope of stopping the catastrophe that is about to engulf all out universities, indeed our whole country…..I would like to appraise you of my conversation with Hitler a few days ago. I had hoped to convince him that he was doing enormous damage to the German university, and particularly to physical research, by expelling our Jewish colleagues; to show him how senseless and utterly immoral it was to victimize men who have always thought of themselves a Germans, and who offered up their lives for Germany like everyone else. But I failed to make myself understood-or, worse, there is simply no language in which one can talk to such men. He has lost all contact with reality. What others say to him is at best an annoying interruption, which he immediately drowns by incessant repetitions of the some old phrases about the decay of healthy intellectual life during the past fourteen years, about the need to stop the rot even at this late hour, and so on. All the time, one has the fatal impression that he believes all the nonsense that he pours forth, and he indulges his own delusions by ignoring all outside influences. He is so possessed by his so-called ideas that he is no longer open to argument. A man like that can only lead Germany into disaster."
To stay or flee prewar Germany is considered along with the different outcomes and then the fellow professor bids his leave. Heisenberg on the way home decides to stay in Germany for the sake of German science and "think of the time after the catastrophe," the only advice that Max Planck could offer him. Two years later the first shot would open World War II. I cannot help but see a reflection of where we are today in this political conversation and how the philosophy of neither Jefferson nor Dr. King, as we shall see, would have never been welcome in Nazi Germany as Professor Heisenberg eventually found out. Indeed, we find two chapters later in Behavior in the Face of Political Disaster the courageous German scientist uttering, "We shall simply have to wait. Until such time as we can do anything at all. Meanwhile we must try to keep order in the small corners to which our own lives are confined." After all who would listen?
Dr. Martin Kings "the Porter" and "the Window Cleaner."
The last political conversation is found in chapter one Where are we? And penultimately chapter five Where we are going of Where do we go from here? Chaos or Community? This colloquy and final last testament really is between Dr Martin Luther King and the rest of us – the community. His wife, the late Coretta Scott King, in the introduction reminds us that "in this work Martin Luther King, Jr. stresses the common cause of all the disinherited, white and black, laying the basis for the struggles now unfolding around economic issues. He spoke out sharply for all the poor in all their hues, for he knew if color made them different, misery and oppression made them the same."
It is in Where we are going that Martin's story of "the Porter" is introduced as a lesson that he would never forget and harkens back to Jefferson's poor weary soldier and poor drunken woman. The story he relates is based on a report that he heard of "two men who flew into Atlanta to confer with a civil rights leader at the airport. Before they could begin to talk, the porter sweeping the floor drew the local leader aside to talk about a matter that troubled him. After fifteen minutes had passed, one of the visitors said bitterly to his companion, 'I am just too busy for this kind of nonsense. I haven't come a thousand miles to sit and wait while he talks to a porter.' The other replied, 'When the day comes that he stops talking to a porter, on that day I will not have the time to come one mile to see him." Again, this value to care about the other is no different here than with Jefferson's taking time to listen to a fellow citizen in need or with a concern to bring attention to.
Where are we today? The keys to the double lock of peaceful change were not just in the hand of the black community. The other key, Martin claimed, was in the hand of the white community. Have we as a country used that key to relieve all that we can regardless of color as Jefferson calls us to? Or are we back to 1966 when the problem was declared a simple "The poor can stop being poor if the rich are willing to become even richer at a slower pace."
Maybe I can reach an answer by way of a colloquy that comes directly from what turned out to be a humbling experience training a new window cleaner in the trade. The new window cleaner from where I was standing and checking his work had missed a spot. "Looks like you missed a spot." From where the new guy was standing he claimed no such spot existed. "What spot? I do not see any spot." Soon I was insisting and getting hot about it. "Sure you have. I know you have." O how humble I did feel when I realized that behind my spot was a brick background. Not until I took the effort and moved to his perspective I soon understood that behind his spot was the deep blue sky that did not background the spot. But we had an understanding because one of us was willing to move closer to the other.
The fear, that I have today in retrospect, is that in America the distance between luxury and liberty and the distance between where the poor woman, the poor wearied soldier, the deluded National Socialist, a somber Max Planck, the airport porter and the service sector window cleaner stand compared to where the rich stand has grown so great and wide that no key or keys can be possibly be exchanged; that the reach has come to far between us, because like Jefferson concluded in European France, the property "of this country is absolutely con-centered in a very few hands." That now the day breaks upon problems not just of distribution as Martin pointed out, but of both the production and distribution of work and wealth. (As an aside I only hope that I am not shot for suggesting any of this.)
Fortunately, for us Dr. King takes heart and concludes ultimately in his last chapter The World House with the First Epistle of Saint John that Love is the key in the choice between nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation:
Let us love one another; for love is of God
And every one that loveth is born of God, and
Knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not
God; for God is love….If we love one another,
God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Lets us take up this prayer of relief and have a political conversation amongst ourselves on this day in all ways civil and in complete freedom, for these any many other unexamined reasons. Let us then walk together and renew our faith in the values this nation started with; the right of equality, the natural rights of man and woman, the sovereignty of the people, and the right of revolution in values that Martin Luther King in so many words called for nearly 40 years ago today.
I am Citizen Michael John Keenan
For a beautiful rendition of Dr. King's last days go to "Democracy Now" today. A riveting experience. Each reference to the destructiveness to the Vietnam War, the Iraq War can be substituted.
Thank You, Amy, for this memorial.