Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King, Jr., Internationalist

January 15, 2022 Khury Petersen-smith, Other Words. Strategize! Black Liberation, Internationalism, Martin Luther King Jr, Solidarity

We celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day not only to commemorate King’s historic role in overcoming racism and other injustice, but because his work and vision remain relevant. Today’s persistent racism in policing, health care, housing, and elsewhere, and attacks on voting rights — particularly for Black Americans — show that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is not just about the past or the South. King got arrested in Alabama. He marched in Chicago. He spoke truth to power in Washington. He worked with countless activists and ordinary people to take action that transformed the Jim Crow South and impacted this whole country. But his outlook went well beyond our borders. Martin Luther King was an internationalist.

The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire

February 4, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Popular Resistance. Educate! Failed State, Martin Luther King Jr, Trade, US Empire

In 2004, journalist Ron Susskind quoted a Bush White House advisor, reportedly Karl Rove, as boasting, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” He dismissed Susskind’s assumption that public policy must be rooted in “the reality-based community.” “We’re history’s actors,” the advisor told him, “…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Sixteen years later, the American wars and war crimes launched by the Bush administration have only spread chaos and violence far and wide, and this historic conjunction of criminality and failure has predictably undermined America’s international power and authority.

Scheer Intelligence: The FBI’s Crusade Against MLK Was Darker Than You Think

January 29, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Assassination, FBI, Martin Luther King Jr, Surveillance

“You are done. There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.” That’s the shocking ending to the infamous letter Civil Rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received in 1964 essentially urging him to commit suicide. The letter and accompanying package containing blackmail were sent by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as King quickly caught on. While the full, unredacted letter was finally published by the New York Times in 2014, the audio recordings of an extensive FBI wiretapping operation targeting King have been sealed until 2027.

Martin Luther King’s Radical Anticapitalism

January 21, 2021 Keeanga Yahmahtta-Taylor, The Paris Review. Educate! Capitalism, Martin Luther King Jr, Poverty, Racism

In a posthumously published essay, Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that the “black revolution” had gone beyond the “rights of Negroes.” The struggle, he said, is “forcing America to face all of its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing the evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.” But it had not started out that way. Over the course of a decade, the black struggle opened up a deeper interrogation of U.S. society, and King’s politics traversed the same course.

Martin Luther King’s Vision Of An Interconnected World

January 19, 2021 Arthur Romano, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Inequality, International Soi, Martin Luther King Jr, Poverty

We are facing converging global crises — a horrific pandemic, worsening economic inequality both in the United States and globally, climate change and the continuing scourge of systemic racism around the world. What would Martin Luther King Jr. think or advise if he were alive today? What might he say in these days after the Capitol Building was attacked by a primarily white mob that was seeking to usurp the results of a free and fair election and implement an America First agenda through violent force? To get to these answers, we need to consider one of King’s most important and overlooked pieces of writing, The World House, a chapter in the last book he wrote, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”

Reclaiming The Radical Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 18, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Capitalism, Martin Luther King Jr, militarism, Racism

In the last years of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rejected duopoly politics and challenged the roots of the crises we face, what he called the triple evils of racism, capitalism and militarism. As many people active in the Civil Rights Movement moved into the Democratic Party, Dr. King taught that the movement must be independent of political parties and be "the conscience" of them. For this, Dr. King was shunned and hated. In this interview from MLK Day in 2015, Kevin Zeese and I spoke with Kymone Freeman, co-founder of We Act Radio in Washington,DC, JasiriX, an activist and artist out of Pittsburgh, PA, and Cat Brooks, an activist in Oakland, CA about the revival of the radical Dr. King and how they are continuing his work in their communities.

Mariame Kaba Talks Abolition, Mutual Aid And Campus Police

January 17, 2021 Binah Schatsky, Daily Northwestern. Educate! Abolition, Campus Police, Martin Luther King Jr, Mutual Aid

Activist and prison-industrial complex abolitionist Mariame Kaba celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by praising NU Community Not Cops and speaking to the importance of mutual aid and political organizing in Wednesday’s MLK Dream Week virtual keynote. The keynote, which was broadcast to over 1,000 attendees, began with a virtual performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Northwestern Community Ensemble members and alumni. Kaba then delivered her speech in which she laid out core tenets of abolitionist practice, tying the current movement to King’s principles. “Abolitionists have a lot to learn from Dr. King,” Kaba said.

Martin Luther King’s Revolutionary Dream Deferred

January 17, 2021 Danny Sjursen, Truthdig archives. Educate! Capitalism, Martin Luther King Jr, militarism, Racism

We kill the most beautiful among us—anyone, it seems, who reveals the nastier, brutish elements of American society and has the audacity to imagine, demand even, a better path: peace, unity and tolerance. Abraham Lincoln, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and so many others. This year marks the 50th anniversary of King’s tragic assassination, and though countless publications will brim with commemorations and retrospectives of this misunderstood icon, most will miss the mark. Long ago co-opted and sanitized by mainstream political figures, the King of memory bears little resemblance to the radical, complex man himself.

The CIA Still Protects Spy Who Shadowed Martin Luther King Jr.

April 28, 2018 By Jefferson Morley, Alternet.org Educate! CIA, Martin Luther King Jr, Spies, Surveillance

The CIA shadowed Martin Luther King Jr. during his stay at a Miami hotel in July 1966 with the help of a spy whose identity still remains a secret a half-century later. The revelation is found in a 48-page file on King, portions of which were made public late last year, along with thousands of JFK assassination files. President Trump has ordered all federal agencies to release the rest of their JFK-related files by April 26, a directive which covers the agency's King file as well. Trump's order, issued last October, exempts from disclosure only "the names and addresses of any mentioned person who is still living." So if the CIA's spy is deceased, his or her name is supposed to be made public this week. If not, the CIA has got their back.

Martin Luther King Jr Was A Radical. We Must Not Sterilize His Legacy

April 5, 2018 Cornel West, Theguardian.com Educate! History, Martin Luther King Jr, MLK, Revisionism

The major threat of Martin Luther King Jr to us is a spiritual and moral one. King’s courageous and compassionate example shatters the dominant neoliberal soul-craft of smartness, money and bombs. His grand fight against poverty, militarism, materialism and racism undercuts the superficial lip service and pretentious posturing of so-called progressives as well as the candid contempt and proud prejudices of genuine reactionaries. King was neither perfect nor pure in his prophetic witness – but he was the real thing in sharp contrast to the market-driven semblances and simulacra of our day. In this brief celebratory moment of King’s life and death we should be highly suspicious of those who sing his praises yet refuse to pay the cost of embodying King’s strong indictment of the US empire, capitalism and racism in their own lives.

Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr. And Why?

April 2, 2018 William Pepper, Ratical.org Educate! Assassination, CIA, Martin Luther King Jr, Poor People's Campaign

This year is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His death came at the time when he was speaking out against the Vietnam War and poverty while continue to speak about racism. His death was one year to the day of his speech Beyond Vietnam; Time To Break The Silence, which laid out the triple evils that still plague us, war, racism and capitalism. It is also came when he was planning the Poor People's Campaign, a march on Washington, DC which had elites in government very nervous. While the official story that a lone gunman, James Earl Ray, was his assassin there are tens of millions who do not accept the story and ask who killed Martin Luther King, Jr. and why. One person who spent more than two decades seeking answers to those questions was his friend, colleague and lawyer William Pepper below is a speech he gave answering those questions.

Poor People’s Campaign: City Of Hope

February 9, 2018 Liam Farrell, TERP. Educate! Martin Luther King Jr, Poor People's Campaign, Poverty, Resurrection City

The pilgrim protesters poured into Washington, D.C., from the farms of the South, the cities of the North, the mountains of Appalachia and the deserts of the West. Carrying hammers, nails and pieces of plywood, America’s poor and forgotten met in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial 50 years ago this spring to build a new monument, albeit a temporary one. Their shantytown, called Resurrection City, was meant to honor the final vision of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated just weeks earlier in Memphis, and to refocus the country’s conscience onto the plight of its most destitute.

Poor People To March On Washington DC June 2

February 8, 2018 Cheri Honkala, Popular Resistance. Resist! Martin Luther King Jr, Poor People's Campaign, Poverty

On June 2 in Philadelphia PA from the poorest District in Pennsylvania, Kensington, poor families will gather from across the entire country in the largest poor people’s march to Washington DC in the March for Our Lives. Kensington is home to the highest death rate of ANY major U.S. city. In 2016, 64,000 Americans died from opioids - more than in the entire Vietnam War (55,000). In Philadelphia, there were 1,200 overdose deaths last year due to mostly opioids. It has quadrupled the murder rate.

«1 2 3 4 »

Daily movement news and resources