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TechnoratiAmerica Lauds Martin Luther King, but Undermines His Legacy Every Day
The National Civil Rights Museum sits in what was the Lorraine Motel, just beyond the shadows of Memphis's skyscrapers and the garish neon glow of Beale Street - the main drag made famous by the likes of BB King and James Baldwin. The first words of the first exhibit state: "Protest against injustice is deeply rooted in the African-American experience." Then come pictures of lynchings, burning crosses, martyrs and heroes, alongside mock-ups of Rosa Parks in the bus and lunch counters waiting to be integrated.
About two-thirds of the way through is a replica of the Birmingham jail cell from which Martin Luther King wrote his letter in response to the local white clergy asking him to stop the protests and leave town. "I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate ... who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice," he wrote. "Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
And from there begins the gradual incline past the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the emergence of black power and the assassination of Malcolm X, until you reach room 306 - where the story ends with King stepping out on to the Lorraine Motel balcony on April 4 1968 to be killed by a sniper's bullet.
Forty years after King's death, the ability of America to both mythologise the man and marginalise his meaning is all too cruelly apparent. His symbolic likeness is effortlessly incorporated into America's self-image as the land of relentless progress. Meanwhile, his legacy of struggling against poverty and imperialism is undermined with every passing day. Had he lived he would most certainly have been loathed. In order for America to love him, he first had to die.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the stewardship of the museum itself. For while the exhibits showcase King's struggles for equal rights, the executive director of its board, JR "Pitt" Hyde, has been actively working against the selfsame principles. Hyde is a wealthy Republican who worked for the defeat of Harold Ford Jr (a black candidate) in a Senate race that was generally acknowledged to be the most racist campaign of the 2006 elections.
The contradictions between the life's work of King and Hyde couldn't be more stark. King fought racial injustice. Hyde for several years fought a racial harassment lawsuit that was backed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the company that he founded, AutoZone. King was in Memphis to support a garbage workers' strike over pay and conditions. Hyde has packed his board with corporate types who hire out the museum for functions.
"Nowadays they like the fact that they can sit down to dinner at the site of the King assassination," says circuit judge D'Army Bailey, a founder of the museum who was ousted from the board. "It gives them a good feeling. Corporations want to be identified with it because that kind of identification brings pacification. It's been hijacked."
This cognitive dissonance between what has proved to be morally right and what remains politically expedient is deeply entrenched. The absurdity it engenders will crest over the coming week as the nation watches, as though on a split screen, as King is lauded on one side and Barack Obama's former preacher, Jeremiah Wright, remains lambasted on the other.
Wright is no King. His delivery is too shrill, his demeanour too hectoring, his message insufficiently unifying. Nonetheless, Wright and King come from the same tradition of militant religious leadership that has been a hallmark of black political life for well over a century. Under slavery and then segregation, the church was one of the few places that African-Americans could gather and organise autonomously - giving primacy, for better and for worse, to the pulpit and the preacher in black politics.
"The principal social institution within every black community was the church," writes historian Manning Marable in his book Black Leadership. "As political leaders, the black clergy were usually the primary spokespersons for the entire black community, especially during periods of crisis ... To some extent, this tradition has been characterised by a charismatic or dominating political style."
It is unlikely King would have fared any better on YouTube or the blogosphere than Wright did. King, like Wright, was excoriated for opposing the "senseless and unjust war" in Vietnam. "The reaction was like a torrent of hate and venom," recalled one of his aides, Andrew Young. "As a Nobel prizewinner we expected people not to agree with it, but to take it seriously. We didn't get that. We got an emotional outburst attacking his right to have an opinion."
A few months before he died, King told parishioners at his church in Montgomery, Alabama: "We are criminals in that war ... We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world ... But God has a way of even putting nations in their place." And how would God deal with an unrepentant America? "And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."
After a few loops of that on 24-hour cable TV, it's not difficult to imagine the anchors pressuring Bobby Kennedy to disavow all association with such a wayward black preacher. These episodic outcries at the black political vernacular reveal the force and the fragility of King's legacy.
The monied black middle class his movement helped create is imploding. A Pew report last year revealed that almost half of African-Americans born to middle-income parents in 1968 - the year King died - have ended up in the lowest fifth of the nation's earners. This was true for just 16% of whites. Obama's electoral hopes notwithstanding, black America has rarely been more pessimistic. Another Pew poll shows that less than half say life will get better for them in the future - a significant retreat even from the dog days of the Reagan era.
America may be integrated by law, but it is segregated by practice and perspective. Black Americans not only live parallel lives to white Americans, they also have a different understanding of what America has been, is and could be.
"This sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," wrote scholar and activist WEB DuBois at the turn of the last century. "Of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness - an American, a negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."
Given the nation's racial history, such ambivalence should come as little surprise, yet invariably becomes news when expressed from a sufficiently prominent dais.
Turning your back on room 306 in the Memphis museum and walking back through the lynchings, martyrs, crosses and bombed churches, one is reminded of the words of Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay. "If the black man is a little bitter," he wrote, "the white man should be the last person in the world to accuse him of bitterness."
Gary Younge's most recent book is Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States; he is also the author of No Place Like Home.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
29 Comments so far
Show AllHow do you end decay? You out-create it.
The manipulation, morselization and marginalization of meaningful messages is a corruption of magnitude achieved by incremental invisibility.
It is the act of omission which drives such a counter-campaign forward, emptying words of their weight, import, substance and context. Those who order such cowardly acts are true enemies of freedom, dignity, humanity, life, liberty and justice in all forms. Those who serve them and do the deeds are dumbed down fools who are paid too much to be of real value to anybody, least of all themselves. Such people are the collective enemies of truth and the authors of nightmares for mankind.
The jading of important dreams that motivate man's highest ideals is the act of the the meanest character, the brute, the bully, the ripper of baby from living womb. Yes, they deserve such castigation and disgust for their act to turn such words into meaningless drivel is an act of violence that drives hope and the opportunity for happiness from the collective light of humanity's otherwise friendly and compassionate eyes.
The world is driven by ideas that matter to all humanity that give all equal opportunity, to kill a brilliant idea with a sneer, a frown, or a bullet is the act of the greatest fool.
We need to end such foolishness.
We need to end the decay that characterizes this age of burdens.
Maybe the cases of Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan should also be brought to trial. There is no question that Sirhan pointed a gun at Bobby Kennedy, but the fatal shot, according to autopsy reports, was discharged within an inch at the back of his head.
Perhaps what Obama can be successful at, if he survives, is getting people to recognize and band together against their common enemy, who like to fall back on "Class War!" Well it is, and they started it. Rockerbabe made the point about the rich ripping us off on another post.
kathyodat
It's not illegal to SHOUT FIRE in a theater, that really IS on FIRE
Thank you veritas. I'd read of "designated" shooter being fallacious, and some level of conspiracy - but this is now SO BIG. This could be the ticket to overthrowing this IDIOTIC resistance against the wacky subject.
Like Brittany's latest in depth NEWS FLASH (crotchless panties) is NOT wacky
( I'm going into my thesaurus to find more "appropriately" named terms. )
Hells Bells, it hardly is a THEORY any longer
when the court system proves that it really happened.
It was a theory prior to the trail,
NOW it is a FACT.
Namaste
I'm not surprised, Namaste. Most people aren't aware. (So much for a free press -- none of the major media outlets in the country had the guts to cover it. And the O.J trial was called the Trial of the Century...) You can read the entire trial transcript at the King Center's website. It will blow your mind. Many important details of how things really work in this country are revealed. I hope you take the time to become acquainted with them and share them with people.
When individuals blather on about their own interpretation of MLK's legacy, I want to scream. Until we face up to the ugly facts of his death, we can't understand what his life stood for and why he was such a threat to the establishment powers-that-be. He's been turned into a Disney character to be trotted out every January along with "I Have a Dream."
Gee, just maybe those "wacky conspiracy theorists" are onto something and should be ignored in future at one's ignorance and peril. I'm getting very tired of paying no attention to the men behind the curtain.
Peace.
veritas -- Stunningly relevant details, that I was not aware of.
May this truth be shouted into the deepest recesses of ALL of America's hearts, and the much delayed healing and justice begin its inexorable path through the very doors of elected representatives with penetrating focus of wise truth and powerful action to punish those reprehensible and deserving.
veritas indeed and in action, let the truth be known and the guilty cower in fear of public exposure and humiliation of their despicable acts of terror and outrage.
Namaste
The Clinton administration repealed part of the New Deal. . .your are right, he did. He couldn't figure out how to pay for these programs (given the repub overwhelming desire to charge everything the military wants and spend way more than we can take in from taxes)and get the budget balanced at the same time. Clinton, by all accounts prevented our federal government from defaulting and when he left, left a hugh surplus. . .which is gone thanks to Dubya. I think a job and hope for the future is so much more important than welfare programs which just keep people in shackles.
There is a lot of hurt in our country surrounding race, gender and past bad behavior. There is also a lot of ingratitude and a stubborn refusal to forgive others, despite calling ourselves Christian.
No too long ago, I read that over 250,000 whites died in the civil war to prevent the southern states from seceeding and to end the practice of slavery - the bloodiest war in our nation's history. Most black people do not see that sacrifice with any respect; as I surmise from comments like "so" or "big deal". The effort was dismissed (especially when trying to deal with the Confederate flag issue). Respect is earned and I think the past actions and sacrifices of so many deserve more respect than is being given. Martin Luther King was a great man with a great vision and the moral courage to follow those convictions. . .I wonder if his kids have any clue or is this only about money for them?
I have not clue what the real answer to our problems is, but continuing to act, speak, think and feel the way we do is not going to heal the hurt and allow us to move forward.
"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1977 the family of Martin Luther King engaged an attorney and friend, Dr. William Pepper, to investigate a suspicion they had. They no longer believed that James Earl Ray was the killer. For their peace of mind, for an accurate record of history, and out of a sense of justice they conducted a two decade long investigation. The evidence they uncovered was put before a jury in Memphis, TN, in November 1999. 70 witnesses testified under oath, 4,000 pages of transcripts described that evidence, much of it new. It took the jury 59 minutes to come back with their decision that exonerated James Earl Ray, who had already died in prison. The jury found that Lloyd Jowers, owner of Jim's Grill, had participated in a conspiracy to kill King. The evidence showed that the conspiracy included J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, the Memphis police department, and organized crime.
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, New and Updated Edition
By William F. Pepper
The definitive account of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, published on the 40th anniversary of his death.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most powerful and eloquent champion of the poor and oppressed in US history, and at the height of his fame in the mid-sixties seemed to offer the real possibility of a new and radical beginning for liberal politics in the USA. In 1968, he was assassinated; the movement for social and economic change has never recovered.
The conviction of James Earl Ray for his murder has never looked even remotely safe, and when William Pepper began to investigate the case it was the start of a twenty-five year campaign for justice. At a civil trial in 1999, supported by the King family, seventy witnesses under oath set out the details of the conspiracy Pepper had unearthed: the jury took just one hour to find that Ray was not responsible for the assassination, that a wide-ranging conspiracy existed, and that government agents were involved.
An Act of State lays out the extraordinary facts of the King story—of the huge groundswell of optimism engendered by his charismatic radicalism, of how plans for his execution were laid at the very heart of government and the military, of the disinformation and media cover-ups that followed every attempt to search out the truth. As shocking as it is tragic, An Act of State remains the most compelling and authoritative account of how King's challenge to the US establishment led inexorably to his murder.
"For a quarter of a century, Bill Pepper conducted an independent investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He opened his files to our family, encouraged us to speak with the witnesses, and represented our family in the civil trial against the conspirators. The jury affirmed his findings, providing our family with a long-sought sense of closure and peace, which had been denied by official disinformation and cover-ups. Now the findings of his exhaustive investigation and additional revelations from the trial are presented in the pages of this important book. We recommend it highly to everyone who seeks the truth about Dr. King's assassination."
-Coretta Scott King
"No one has done more than Dr. William F. Pepper to keep alive the quest for the truth concerning the violent death of Martin Luther King who in courageous and important words once said 'The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government.' In An Act of State, Bill Pepper argues that very government violence was turned on America's greatest prophet of non-violent change."
-Ramsey Clark, US Attorney General, 1967-69
We are being ruled by the same people who killed MLK, JFK, and RFK. The Scottish Rite British Controlled Masons who gave us the KKK, and we even have a statue of Albert Pike in Washington DC, one of the founders of the KKK.
http://freemasonrywatch.org/albertpikestatue_mustfall.html
Reverend Wright is certainly short on diplomacy, but what did he say that was inaccurate? It wasn't meant to assuage feelings. America has done some bad things.
My America can own up to this. Perfection is not required but ought to be striven for.
Why do the "democrats" defensively run from charges of American malfeasance?
These things happened, and will happen again unless they are faced squarely.
I am often told by conservatives to "forget it and move on", but if we "forget it", moving on will be impossible in as much as nothing will have been learned.
We can do better, and we had better...
The endless comparisons between Jeremiah Wright and Martin Luther King make me wonder...
Where was Jeremiah Wright while Dr. King was marching in Selma? Where was he during the whole struggle for civil rights that preceded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Did Jeremiah Wright march with Martin Luther King?
When? Or why not?
Did Jeremiah Wright instead turn his back on the historical struggle unfolding in the Jim Crow south, where you had to put your life on the line to make a statement for black liberation?
Where was he?
Reverend Wright was born in 1941, so by 1959 he was certainly old enough to join Dr. King, or participate in the historical struggle for equal rights in many other ways.
What did he do?
Reverend Wright didn't have to wait until 2008 to become a hero by cursing America in a church in Chicago.
Jeremiah Wright could have marched beside Dr. Martin Luther King 40 years ago.
Where was he?
In 1959 Reverend Wright was attending Virginia Union University in Richmond. Did he ever take any time off from class to march with Martin Luther King?
When? Or why not?
We didn't really have to wait until 2008 to compare Jeremiah Wright and Martin Luther King. Jeremiah Wright could have earned the comparison a long time ago.
What did he do instead?
After a stint in the peacetime Marines, Jeremiah Wright entered Howard University in 1967.
Did he take any time off from class to march with Dr. King in the dangerous struggle against white power in the South?
When? Or why not?
It's easy to be a hero to the hate-America left now, but back when it wasn't so easy...
Back when Martin Luther King was risking his life every day in Alabama and Tennessee...
Where was Jeremiah Wright?
I rather think that an Obama presidency would be as good for people of all other racial minorities in the USA (hispanics, natives, asians, islanders) as it would for blacks. It is a constant source of amazement to me how any Hispanics ever voted for Bush, yet they did in 2000 in large numbers. And I likewise don't understand how they could think that either Hillary or McCain would possibly be permitted by their white voter blocks to actually do anything positive for any people of any other colors or creeds.
Fortunately, the Bosnia-landing-under-snipers fib told by Hillary and exposed in media MAY well be driving Hillary's sudden drop-off in national polls. With just a little luck that story has far more "legs" with voters than the media now acknowledges, and the way may be suddenly opening for Obama---just as it was opened for him twice before in races for Illinois Senate, then U.S. Senate from Illinois.
It's also a curious thing to me---perhaps even providential--that everyone but a beer distributor (McCain) has now fallen out of the Republican field that is supposedly the political home base of "social conservatives". Maybe, indeed, we can just let something very good happen to our country with Obama's brand of leadership actually elected.
Folks, Read Paul Street. One of the best analysts of Obama on the planet (along with Margaret Kimberley, Glen Ford, and Bruce Dixon). These are the people highlighting the problems with Obama from a progressive-left point of view, the last three being African Americans. They are pointing out how Obama is ignoring institutional racism in order gain white support and why he is not proposing to address any of the problems outlined by the Kerner Commission in 1968 (recently highlighted on Moyers last Fri. night on PBS). An Obama presidency will result in zero change in the racial divide because he is asking for nothing to be changed and he is asking white for no change in their behavior. White institutional racism which dominates American society throughout will keep blacks under its grip for every minute of an Obama presidency.
Start here:
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16947
A major part of what Dr. Martin Luther King tried to stress is something that America now rejects -- social and economic justice. He included people of all races more than we like to remember, focusing on impoverished urban blacks to impoverished rural whites. He brought a measure of awareness of poverty in the US, explaining how helping the very poor into the mainstream benefits the whole nation. And they can't be brought into the mainstream until (A) they are helped out of crisis, and (B) are given access to the tools they need to work their way out of poverty. For a brief time, we saw a historical narrowing of our economic disparities, which grew again with the Reagan administration, began faltering when the Clinton administration repealed part of the New Deal, and exploded under Bush. But this time, the average American really doesn't have a clear picture of our own poverty. This time, we don't see it on the evening news. We no longer even mention those who have fallen below the "working poor".
I think the fact that it was a Democrat who took an ax to our anti-poverty programs is central to current popular views, where there is little interest in the common good. We're all worse off because of it.
Be For Kids -- You've uncovered a malady of epic proportion, when asking "What happened to old fashioned honesty? That when you open your mouth people can trust what comes out of it? That's not even in the equation anymore."
One's WORD is the measure of a man or woman, as what we speak forth as creations of our spirit and mind, do have a life beyond mere echoes upon the walls.
The absolute power of sounds and thought have been "de-materialized" in today's near worthless materialism and superficial appearances. This is at tremendous cost for the value of human dignity and intrinsic power of ALL of humankind. We now tend to completely ignore those w/o a "voice" through the aberrant grandstand of M$M, AS IF only those amplified voices mattered any longer. Everyone's voice and vote counts.
The Hindu's believe that the sound of O_M launched the universe's creation, ages ago, and I view the slowly simmering cosmic background radiation (3 K remnant) to be that self-same but distant vibrations resounding after 15 billion yr of growth.
Harlan Ellison indirectly addressed the sheer terror of those voicelessly disenfranchised, in his short story "I Have No Mouth and Must Scream".
I __ A M __ M Y __ W O R D
Forget this NOT, declare thunderously your own power onto the heavens, and providence will answer vibrantly and with joyful energy of creation.
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
God has already damned America. We are the dead men,
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion.
Forget the firefighters, policemen, and troops. Testosterone is not the foundation of a democratic republic.
Look, as human nature is further revealed as being tawdry and destructive, there is only one solution: change it!
If all males were neutered, that would be a good start! And if women went back to being feminine...
P.S. Did you know that an invasion of America is being planned? Check my blog!
www.dangerouscreation.com
Old Hippy, unfortunately there are some things in this country you don't talk about. No one is talking about what's being done to what's left of the Native Americans. Whites are extremely defensive about how Blacks are treated in this country.
No matter how much evidence turns up, any discussion of conspiracy theories are taboo. I think Americans are terrified to face the fact that this country actually might not be a Democracy and I have thought so ever since the JFK assassination.
I think it's actually funny that Americans were tolerant - indulgent even - of Bill Clinton's lies about Monica Lewinsky and offended by Hillary's lies about courage under fire. People understand that he didn't want to admit in front of his wife that he had sex with another woman while his wife was in the house, but pretending to be heroic is unacceptable. This has nothing to do with integrity or truthfulness. What happened to old fashioned honesty? That when you open your mouth people can trust what comes out of it? That's not even in the equation anymore.
kathyodat
The good rev Wright was right. The U.S. was reponsible for
9-11. They damn near eliminated a whole race of people, the
Native Americans. In WWI, if you had a German sounding name
or even spoke German, you were considered "the enemy." Any-
body remember the Japaneese interment camps of WWII? If a
group of terrorists did in fact pull off 9-11 WHICH I DOUBT, All I can say is Payback is a bitch.
IF I was Rev. Wright or Barrak Obama, I would be investing heavily in Kevlar right about now.
And should McCain become president, which by much recent comment is most likely because HRC is doing her damnedest to destroy the Democratic party if she can't be the nominee, then if I was either Wright or Obama I would be on the next plane out of Ottawa headed for Switzerland and safe haven.
The NRA and KKK will be gunning for these two.
I would not be surprised if in the very near future, one or both of these men are gunned down by a Limbaugh-loving, Bush worshipping neo-con thug.
"America lauds Martin Luther king, but undermines his legacy everyday"
The basic cause for this is the American understanding of "freedom" and "democracy". Unless and until this understanding is set right, America continues to undermine not only the legacy of Martin Luther King, but also the sovereignty and democracy of countries around the world and the human rights of citizens of these countries.
America will not change its understanding of "democracy" and "freedom" because if it does, it will have a direct consequences on its very origin as a country, and its socio-political and economic apartheid. Because it is founded on the innocent blood and slavery, and continue to get its life-blood from the latter.
Gary Yonge is a nice guy but being a Brit, it's understandable he still doesn't really get Dr. King. Most Americans do not either.
His principled opposition to the abridgement of civil rights for people of color in the US was not what got
5 him killed. That was but on a step that took Dr. King down the road of political and cultural awareness.
That awareness led to the conclusion that Ameirca at its very best always was a place built on the strong exploiting the weak and such had made us a hypocrite nation since our founding documents proclaimed us to be otherwise.
The greatest sin anyone can commit in America is to interupt "business as usual". That's what got Dr. King killed. He did that more successfully and with greater passion than any single other person of his time.
Our Chains Are For Free
Color code the empire red
full spectrum stupidity is just ahead
How do you declare a war on terror
if you be the biggest bearer?
For the gangsta empire to succeed
us marks sure gonna need to bleed
the global war for terror is our deed
enslaved by the weapons of our greed
yes it is, yes it is, WMD indeed
For their money is for nothing
and our chains are for free
and we will do their bidding
and we will do their bidding
and we will do their bidding
for a patriots pride ain't it fitting
for we the greatest gansta empire
and we made a war for terror
and we made a war for terror
and we made a war for terror
cause we yah we are the biggest bearer
EXACTLY Kathyodat! Thank you.
Juliann, perhaps I put that wrong. How about a President who listens to all of us, not just the ones with the biggest checkbooks?
kathyodat
No one can make us feel valued. That's OUR job. A president can devalue me all s/he wants. Shame on me if I dance to his or her tune.
My thoughts too, bandido. Except, last but most, the Constitution. What I thought was it took 40 years for King's prophesy to come to pass. And we did it to ourselves. A reminder fro all, what goes around comes around. Sadly, the poorest fifth will pay the highest price. I don't care how much the rich may lose, the poor always lose more.
Of course the current occupant is doing his damnedest to make sure the rich won't feel any pain.
We really do need a President who can make all of us feel valued, not just the privileged. My personal opinion is that Obama is that person.
kathyodat
Maybe God is using Bu$h's arrogance to break the USA backbone, the dollar, the military, and last but least, the Constitutional form of government.