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Martin Luther King’s Legacy: Nonviolence is Not Surrender
The memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King opened on the Mall in Washington. Dr. King will take his place with Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The monument features a 30-foot figure of Dr. King, hewn from granite, looking forward and very stern. This is the look of a man of action whose work is not done.
That is its power.
Dr. King was a man of peace, but he was not a passive man. He believed that confrontation in the face of indignation preceded reconciliation. To have healing, you must pull the glass from the wound. He was, as he said, a drum major for justice. He knew that peace was the presence of justice, not the absence of noise. And it could only be achieved through struggle, through the concerted actions of engaged citizens.
We pay tribute to Dr. King’s dream, but he was not an idle dreamer. His was a dream of transformation. He was a man who used demonstration, negotiation, confrontation and reconciliation to achieve change.
The 1963 March on Washington took place in a capital still stained by legal segregation. Fannie Lou Hamer, Jim Farmer, head of CORE, and many others could not get to the march because they were in jail. I had just been released from jail, arrested for trying to use a public library. Across the South, marchers who gathered could not use public accommodations. We were still locked out of restaurants, restrooms and hotels.
Dr. King taught nonviolence, but nonviolence was not surrender. We used our bodies as living sacrifices. He took the sting out of jail cells and death. No sacrifice is too great to achieve a higher moral purpose.
Perfect love casts out fear. Dr. King was fearless. He insisted that we see the humanity in our oppressors — but that we not accept the oppression. We must protest, in disciplined, nonviolent but forceful demonstrations, and boycott, litigate, lobby and legislate, tying up the legislatures, filling up the jails. We had to demand respect for our humanity, even as we appealed to the humanity of those who would beat and jail us.
Dr. King held no public office; he amassed no fortune. He was not a saint, but he had a saintly cause and a steely purpose. He was an extraordinary leader helping to inspire ordinary people — the poor sharecropper, the student, the minister, the seamstress — to put aside daily routines and take heroic risks and make historic contributions to justice. That movement transformed America.
Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration consecrated an America dedicated to liberty and justice for all, but blacks were considered three-fifths human. Democracy and slavery cannot co-exist. Lincoln’s agony erased the stain of slavery, and saved the union. King’s movement ended American apartheid, and brought us closer to America’s promise for all. One Big Tent America is where all are protected by law, and none is afraid of terror from the other.
Dr. King did not stop there. From ending segregation, he continued to march and to preach, moving Lyndon Johnson to drive through the Voting Rights Act. And still he did not stop. He won epic battles in life-risking bloody struggles in Montgomery, Birmingham, Selma and St. Augustine. He challenged de facto segregation in Chicago.
He challenged the Vietnam War, knowing that the war on poverty was being lost in those jungles. He believed bombs dropped in Vietnam exploded in American cities because of neglect of the poor.
I remember him on his last birthday. He ate breakfast with his family. Then he came to work in jeans, working tirelessly on assembling a Poor People’s Campaign, bringing people across bounds of race, region and religion, to come to Washington to demand economic justice. He was prepared to engage in civil disobedience and defy a system that ignored the poor, and he challenged the United States Congress to change its priorities. He believed that a moral society would put a floor under all people, providing a right to a job or a minimum income that would lift each family above poverty.
Dr. King is loved and honored now. But in his life, like all prophets of change, like Jesus, Mandela, Gandhi, he was hated, slandered, despised. The FBI sought to destroy him. He was arrested, beaten, scorned. He grew tired; he understood how far we had come, and also how far we had yet to go. We were together in his last hour, when he went to Memphis to stand with sanitation workers striking to gain a decent wage.
His visage should be stern. His work is not yet done. America now is more unequal than when he died, with poverty spreading. The nation is fighting three wars abroad, even while slashing support for schools, for the sick, for infants at home. We hear new advocates of states’ rights posturing about seceding from a nation they claim to love. This is a nation desperately in need of a new movement for justice, of citizens once more marching to redeem this nation.
Dr. King helped make America better. We honor him not merely by a statue, but by fulfilling his mission: ending the unnecessary wars, wiping out poverty, and leaving Washington and returning to our homes with the determination to maintain gains earned by years of blood, struggle and martyrdom.
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47 Comments so far
Show AllOf the many things that I admire about MLK, one that stands out to me, is he sacrificied his life for truth and proved Gandhi's statement that non-violence is not cowardice. " A Satyagrahi says goodbye to fear. Self sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a million men who die in the act of killing others. The willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful retort to insolent tyranny that has been conceived by God or man".
"His visage should be stern."
How much did the Chinese pay you to write this? This entire article reads like a media campaign. Did you have a vote in deciding the artist and work of this memorial?
You really think you're something, don't you? That you so easily, or should I say naturally, pass off slander of this kind? A DECENT human being looks for things to applaud, not condemn. When you have done an iota of what Dr. King or Jessie Jackson have attempted to do, then you can cast the first stone... you jack-ass.
And that goes for the side-kick LINGUM, as those with nothing substantial to say, always seem to show up in this forum with their ready team tag players on hand. That way they can support each other in telling lies often enough, in the twisted hope that some readers will perceive these deceptions as true.
What have you EVER done for any Just cause?
Lot of anger there! Why is it targeted at me? I am not sure who you refer to as LINGUM. You'll have to explain.
I am sorry, but I am entitled to my own take. And I will question who decided on a Chinese designer and who decided US granite was substandard. I will defend as a graphic artist that there are designers here in the states and domestic materials that could have better suited a memorial of someone who championed the rights of this nation's citizens at a time of severe economic disparity.
I know who I am, and I am old enough to remember that Mr. Jackson and Dr. King were not always on the same page. Perhaps you don't have that history at your disposal.
What I have done for just causes is part of who I am. I am not seeking to exploit it like Mr. Jackson, to satisfy your idle curiosity or personally profit from. What I do, I do because I feel compelled to, I don't seek confirmation from anyone else or financial gain.
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4079
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=13339
I am betting you wished you had the power to "ban" me. Perhaps, you do. I know you have a huge fan base here.
"A DECENT human being looks for things to applaud, not condemn."
Then why are you condemning?
This is a comments section, not a cheerleading section.
There is a difference between a comment, given in good faith, and the use of slander intent upon decimating the integrity of another human being. I may not agree with Jessie Jackson on everything, but I think he's done far more good than harm in this world; and it's always the SAME few from this forum who are first to throw poisoned barbs at persons of his calibre. It is on PRINCIPLE that I defend Jackson from boobs like this. Hate speech is NOT free speech.
Calling out the ones who do the condemning--in defense of a writer or activist--is hardly the same thing as condemning for the purpose of decimating an individual and their committed life work. My motives are hardly those of my detractors.
I know that you do know the difference, but I've often seen you "siding" with these characters, and therefore take you for a likely member of the unofficial "embed team."
I realize that those who don't want this insight properly considered, will try to damage me and my reputation for having said it. The pattern has been a virtual routine in these threads for over 2 years.
And "AD" if you come back here, your possibly sincere wish for harmony in the forum presumes that all those present ARE progressive, or OWN honest motives in being here. Since I believe neither, I do not find your calls to tolerance to be pertinent or wise. They remind me of the way Obama blurs differences under the guise of getting along with the "other" side. Whom does that modus operandi serve?
Good response, However, "if" you answer a fool, answer foolishly".
I always skip anything by the reverend--just wanted to mention that.
I guess you're the Lingum I've been accused of conspiring with by "Rosie". Nice to meet you. I also usually skip over the "Rev." Jackson's "junk". I probably should have this time, but I feel strongly about erecting a monument to a US civil rights leader and spending all that money on Chinese artists, granite and craftsmen to erect it while our employment rate is worse than it was when MLK was leading his marches for economic equality. Especially since this thing wasn't erected overnight. It was erected during the height of the "great recession".
I'm not a particular fan of Reverend Jackson, regarding his post-King career, but I think he's done what he's done in good faith. And don't forget, he was very exposed on that balcony after King was shot and generally faced the same dangers though not the target MLK was. I give him credit for his courage.
I agree that the statue should have been sculpted by an American artist with materials from it's ground. I was shocked to read it was made in China.
Mr. Jackson wasn't on the balcony that day.
"Jesse Jackson was not up on the balcony. They even tried to show the picture of Jesse Jackson up on the balcony with Martin Luther King. That picture was taken the day before. It was a publicity shot. "
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4079
America is in the midst of its greatest struggle, the struggle to overcome racism. We will overcome racism or we will be destroyed by it.We should understand that racism operates at the level of force, recognizable in many of these comments. There is a countervailing force, which grows out of grace and freedom. If racism is to end, to this force will be the credit.
Eloquently stated, Mr. Jackson, especially this:
"He challenged the Vietnam War, knowing that the war on poverty was being lost in those jungles. He believed bombs dropped in Vietnam exploded in American cities because of neglect of the poor."
Since this same horrific conjunction between Amerikan imperial wars abroad and depressed, impoverished conditions at home still remains, I thank you for exhibiting the courage to articulate this critical Truth.
Very eloquent. I just wonder how much Mr. Jackson and his media consultants could have written had not Martin Luther King Jr. written the original speech? I think he actually articulated that "critical truth" first and most forcibly. No wonder the King family finds it necessary to impose royalties on his writings.
The speech delivered by Dr King in Riverside Church in NY was in part written in collaboration with Vincent Harding, who bless his loving soul, continues make sure that ACCURATE history is recognized.
I think it important to not conflate the content and character of the work with market priorities later imposed as control of legacy. Something that might be worth considering.
Mr. Jackson:
The world has become enslaved to billionaires. Political leaders come and go, but the billionaire dynasties stay in charge for generations. They are the new royalty and the whole world is their peasantry. This is the struggle now.
God knows you’ve made a good living by aligning your name to King’s for almost 40 year since he passed. But he never made a dime with his causes How long since you risked anything for the people. Will that be your legacy?
I do not like the term "jackass" here. Sioux Rose gets to choose her vernacular. And what does that mean?
I am the supposed jack-ass. Rosie has a right to call me that, but she does need to provide proof of that standing. I am wondering just when she became such a defender of Jesse Jackson? What exact event lead her to become his champion to the extent she'd insult others on his behalf?
Mr. Jackson
Hope to stand with you, shoulder to shoulder on the next march in Washington, D.C. October 6 ---------?, 2011. We have "boots on the ground" work to do..........
No justice, Know PEACE !
Stop the endless, immoral, illegal wars of aggression and bring healing to our communities.
That won't get him invited to parties or commencements.
Exactly. All properly positioned for those hefty speaking fees.
That's right Hung. Hope you're reading these comments Mr. Jackson. Hung has got it exactly right with his call here. Are you going to be there? And mobilize your many contacts too.
PS. We destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan over the deeds of Saudi Arablans. Four more Muslim nations are under attack now. Just for the sake of discussion. Let's say the Christians and Jews are better than the Muslims? Which one is being murdered Reverend?
"Don't we all just love it" when all that's debated in this forum comes down to personalities not ideas, to egos not bettering this world. toward tearing each other apart as only we progressives can do it? What else have some of these people got on their one upman or womanship minds? I'm not sure I even want to know. Imagine some in an indigenous village in the Pacific never exposed to Western savagery having all this translated to them and wondering maybe these are the kinds of people who brought war to our peaceful and civilzed world with all its pain, suffering, and inhumanity. Think about that if you will.
Perhaps my point about Jesse Jackson is better expressed this way: His heroes were men like King, Gandhi and Jesus. They were not wealthy, he is. They associated with the poor, him with the rich. They were all arrested many times. He hasn’t seen less than the Hilton in ages.
It’s not that I could do better. It’s that a leader has lost his way, as he so often associates with the rich for speaking fees or donations (worth it to them for good PR). For a fact, world slavery to billionaires is the largest single problem facing humanity today. He's a friend (for hire) to these people ruining the world at near freefall speed. And this is tragic, because Jesse is one of the few people in America that could mobilize millions if he was willing to lose the gravy train.
Never going to happen. He enjoys his "celebrity" status, just like our president. I am thinking he couldn't mobilize more than those he's hired and paid for in the past. The rest of us know him for what he is.
Maybe we should clean our own houses before we seek to spread our brand of politics to other parts of the world. Republicans also take part in tearing each other apart, don't pretend they don't. And if someone is spreading a crock why shouldn't the rest of us stand up and point out that "the emperor wears no clothes"? Your arguments are pure marketing poppycock. They should have thought twice before they invited western intervention.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the irony of D.C. police jailing the tar sands protesters for extended periods of time to deter future protests aledgedly because of the upcoming detication of the MLK memorial. WTF is up with that huh? Not only that but the police went back on their end of the bargain worked out between themselves and the tar sands protest organizers. Aren't the protesters doing exactly the same thing MLK did? This country is getting so crazy my head is spinning.
I want to add to this conversation by relaying the jist of an interchange I had with a fellow I work with. He was upset that the statue was commissioned to a Chinese sculptor. He asked, "Why not an American?" "Why not an African American?"
My response was that I was sure there was some sort of vetting process and I had heard the sculptor was an artist who was well respected, if not famous.
I mentioned I had also heard a few MLK Jr speeches during the week on Pacifica radio. One speech inparticular was the vietnam speech that can be found here: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/a-time-to-break-silence-by-rev-martin-luther-king-jr-1967/
Pacifica intimated that the Rev Jackson was the writer of or at least a major contributor to that speech. I have not been able to second source that contention, though. Despite being a human being, warts and all, Jesse Jackson is a good man who contibuted his talents to the civil rights movement. He was an effective leader and a force for change. His contributions to create a more just world are admirable by any measure. What he has to say is worth listening to.
Can you outline for the rest of us the "vetting" process? Who decided? How many made that decision? Can we see the other entries?
As to Dr. King's speech on the war in Vietnam: when you can provide proof that Jackson contributed in any manner come share your source. Just how did Pacifica intimate Jackson was the writer? I am really interested in those details. I am not even sure Mr. Jackson writes his own speeches, today.
Is that what you are promoting is that Jesse Jackson wrote Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches? I am sure the world would be interested in your proof of that contention.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=13339
Perhaps he can manufacture that like he did the blood on his shirt. Perhaps you bought that story like the UN bought porta potties as WMD in Iraq. You better start judging people by the "content of their character, rather than the color of their skin".
Nonviolence is fine –when it works. It hasn't worked since the 60's. Wonder why?
Not true. It worked very well in Egypt. It's the one thing that did.
It worked in Poland. It worked in Germany. It works in Denmark and Finland and Norway.
Those that use violence to acheive a goal believe violence is the means by which they defend those goals. The oppressed then become the oppressor and the cycle repeats itself.
Violence IS the tool of the oppressor. The reason nothing seems to get done as far as social justice is concerned in the USA is the prevalence VIOLENCE and not the lack of it.
I dunno JJ. It's easier said than done for most people to preach but not practice non-violence. MLK must have learned a lot about yoga, meditation, peace, tolerance, and understanding. If he were alive today, he would have gotten attacked and smeared as a "right wing status quo shill" and pounded with tons of verbal abuse and petty insults. MLK and Gandhi are the real voices of spiritual reasoning whose tolerant but courageous thinking motivated people to follow them in thinking.
Thank you, Reverend Jackson, for your tribute to Dr. King. There is power in your words, and you may be the most dynamic public speaker I've seen.
Dr. King's focused, nonviolent yet impenetrable resolve to oppose military aggression is in stark contrast with our pathetic president, whom I consider a disgrace to his race. Obama, like his predecessor, "W," is a war president, albeit a more eloquent one. Obama is a charlatan, and has sold the country a pack of lies that act to disenfranchise the nation's poor and disadvantaged, while rewarding the Wall St. crooks stealing all the money from the poor. Poor black kids enlist into the military because they have no other job possibilities.
What the country needs is a black community that is pissed off about being betrayed by the oreo, Tom. A black community that is proud of its heritage of cohesive righteousness, a force that can mobilize communities, with srong voices telling folks to become politically visible again, with church congregations pumping some soul into Dr. King's revolution and shouting out some angry words about being betrayed by a "brother" and about being controlled by Corporations.
The Black community has been a tinderbox since the sixties. it's time to awaken the sleeping giant. Gimme some of that old time religion.
Modern history appears to be sending us a powerful message that power can corrupt people regardless of race, gender, religion, et al although it's true that women, atheists, and most minorities are harder to corrupt. Twenty years ago, the Progressive Black Caucus was one of the best things still available to try to make the Democratic Party pro-populist progressive. Clarence Thomas was way ahead of his time when he got picked as the first Afro-American rapist conservative for the Supreme Court. I think what really started the fall were Afro-American Democrats such as Sanford Bishop among a few who joined the Blue Dog Coalition. After that, I've been seeing a lot of sellout moves even from the best of the Progressive Black Caucus including voting on FISA, killing net neutrality, and TARP in the recent years. Obama might have capitalized on all that just like Corporate America and the MIC wanted him to. I used to be stupid enough years ago to believe the tripe that Cynthia Mckinney was a trouble maker until I found out what really went on. She would make a great president and if not her, there's Stewart Alexander, an Afro-American Socialist Green.
I agree and thanks for bringing that up as well. Last year, when I was visiting China, India, Japan, and other countries throughout the East, I came across a few people who would tell me that corruption spreads from the top all the way to the people. What you said I find more accurate and it reminds me of a quote from the movie Shawshenk Redemption
"you hate jail at first, then you get used to it, and then, after a long time, it becomes the only thing you know. After that long of a time, you lose touch with the outside world and prison life becomes routine, your new life, and some people just can’t deal with the change after that point." - Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boy Redding
All said, I'm probably gonna sound crazy saying this but it's too easy to fall into a mental prison than it is a physical one and it's harder to break out of it.
"The only way to break out of a physical prison is to first mentally escape."
So true it is. The saddest part of it all is that those of us who do suddenly find ourselves at a great loss when the people we thought were there for us to help us escape suddenly turn around and backstab us. Then we realize that maybe they just wanted to feel good that they're suffering and that they just so happen to have company. Being dependent on that mental prison, they're not likely to take kindly to those of us doing the actual heavy lifting of helping not only breaking ourselves out of mental prison but helping them as well. When I leave that mental prison, I miss them but I also get it that enough with suffering already. Everybody may suffer but that doesn't mean that people have to always be forced to suffer. Nobody can be all positive or all negative.
Yeah Gerald, I get it. You have an imaginary axe to grind with me because of an earlier discussion. Thanks for showing us what a moral hypocrite you are. You're not humane at all. You're just a liar and a fraud who steals radical language to look like a big shot drama king. I already knew about you but I was too humane to bother about it until you asked for it. If you had the balls and brains, you might try practicing what you preach just like I do but you're too much of a cultist jock prick to figure that out. You're a dead and lost soul.
Pithy quote, Gerard:
"People know that suppressing their buried inner violent natures -- is what is expected in polite society -- but have as yet, failed to understand that we're no longer living in a "polite and civilized society."
William Reich had a lot to say about this, and in my view, it thoroughly discredits the presumption behind the characterizations seen in "Lord of the Flies." The behavior the novel evidenced was very typical of British society, an empire that had raised its children in a socio-political equivalent of a Mars Rules climate. What can later be expected to result?
Reich ties it all to the repressive nature of the church, and the banishing of a healthy sexuality from human expression.
"People now have an unresolved inner violence, because they know ( in an increasingly larger part ) that they're been egregiously played and made into chumps -- not because of "original sin" making us intrinsically selfish and deceitful."
I would add that "competition" by deceit and winner take all having become the norm in the financial sector can also begin to erode in the 'wannabe' upwardly mobile "class" seduced by the sheepskin psychosis.
Pressure in the form of solidarity and vocal public articulation and constant repetition of the documentation of deceit is absolutely essential. We all know our deep roots - but if one has suppressed this for acquisitive gains knowingly on the backs of others due weak psychological and spiritual base - for whatever reason - awareness in solidarity of these sorts of dynamics is also essential.
I think it is indispensible to keep an eye on the fact that life does not occur without a true core. The system locks people into narcissistic structures. Its about us caring about each other as one of our most essential evolutionary developments.
Millions of people are struggling with precisely what you have pointed out. Judging them, damning them only creates enmity without recourse. Documenting and holding toes to the fire is, however another thing entirely. Perhaps our karmic task is to do precisely this with absolute courage and love.
If we're being set up for a fall - might as well make it worth something sustainable.