MLK

At MLK Conference, Unionists Strategize On Organizing The South

January 18, 2024 Mark Gruenberg, Portside. Organize! MLK, The South, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Unionists at the AFL-CIO’s annual Martin Luther King conference, held January 12-14 in Montgomery, Ala., tackled what one panelist called a decades-long problem for the labor movement: Organizing the South. And that means both for more union victories, and members, and politically, too. The conference, in a birthplace of the modern civil rights movement, preceded the first actual voting of the 2024 presidential campaign: The January 15 Iowa Republican caucuses, pitted former GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump—a self-professed authoritarian who’d rip up the U.S. Constitution—against the rest of the field.

The Forgotten Socialist History Of Martin Luther King Jr.

January 15, 2024 Matthew Miles Goodrich, In These Times. Strategize! History, Martin Luther King Jr, MLK, Socialism

In 1952 a 23-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a love letter to Coretta Scott. Along with coos of affection and apologies for his hasty handwriting, he described his feelings not just toward his future wife, but also toward America’s economic system. “I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic,” he admitted to his then-girlfriend, concluding that “capitalism has outlived its usefulness.” King composed these words as a grad student on the tail end of his first year at the Boston University School of Theology. And far from representing just the utopianism of youth, the views expressed in the letter would go on to inform King’s economic vision throughout his life.

MLK Would Have Been 95 This Year; Let’s Make His Dream A Reality

January 15, 2024 Dedrick Asante-Muhammad and Chuck Collins, Other Words. Educate! Martin Luther King Jr, MLK, Racism, Wealth Divide

This January marks what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 95th birthday. Nearly a century after the late civil rights leader’s birth, it’s a good time to reflect on the work still to be done. Just over 60 years ago, in his famous “I Have A Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, King declared: “We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” Sixty years on, as our report “Still A Dream” highlighted late last year, there’s been some progress.

Ban The War Criminals From King Day Celebrations

January 11, 2024 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Black misleadership class, Martin Luther King Jr, MLK, War crimes

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929. His birthday became an official federal holiday in 1983 and predictably the understanding of the significance of his work is worse due to the designation of this supposed honor. King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, was one of the most public attacks on the liberation movement. His death was followed by decades-long imprisonment of other liberation fighters, the mass incarceration system, and the creation of a buffer class for the purposes of cooptation. All of these issues should be the subject of remembrance and discussion instead of the maudlin exercises that we are subjected to every January.

The Annual Resurrection Of A Fake Dr. King

January 17, 2022 the Black Alliance for Peace. Educate! Black Liberation, Martin Luther King, MLK, Whitewashing

It is January, and in the U.S. this means it is time for the annual ritual of revisiting the white-washed, de-radicalized, pro- “American” M.L. King fairytale as part of the official celebration of King’s birthday. In the official story, Dr. King was not the creation of the movement that was fighting for the democratic and human rights of Black people. No, it was Dr. King who created the movement, according to the colonial white elite and the neocolonial Black misleadership. In this story, the objectives of the movement were not for radical social transformation and Black self-determination but the redemption of the U.S. settler-colonial nation/state and the quiet integration of Black people into the state. In other words, to complete the establishment of a “more perfect nation,” as Obama would put it.

MLK Assassination Day Desecrated By NATO Festivities

March 28, 2019 Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford, Blackagendareport.com Resist! Assassination, History, MLK, NATO

The Trump regime will host NATO’s 70th anniversary celebrations in Washington on April 4, the day Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. “We see this as a grotesque desecration of the legacy of Dr. King, who opposed wars and militarism,” said Netfa Freemanof the Black Alliance for Peace, which will gather at the Plymouth Congregational Church, in Washington, on April 4 to say “No” to U.S. wars.

Kennedy And King Families, Advisers And Allies Call For Reopening Of Assassination Investigations

January 22, 2019 Open Letter, Google Doc. Educate! Assassination, History, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, MLK

Gary L. Aguilar, MD, is a private practicing ophthalmologist in San Francisco, a clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of California-San Francisco, and the vice chief of staff at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. One of the few physicians outside the federal government who has ever been allowed to review President Kennedy's still-restricted autopsy photographs and X-rays, Aguilar has delivered lectures on JFK's autopsy evidence before numerous medical and legal conferences.

Martin Luther King Day And The Unspeakable

January 21, 2019 By Edward Curtin, Countercurrents.org Educate! History, MLK

As Martin Luther King’s birthday is celebrated with a national holiday, his death day disappears down the memory hole. Across the country – in response to the King Holiday and Service Act passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 – people will be encouraged to make the day one of service.Such service does not include King’s commitment to protest a decadent system of racial and economic injustice or non-violently resist the U.S. warfare state that he called “the greatest purveyor of violence on earth.” Government sponsored service is cultural neo-liberalism at its finest, the promotion of individualism at the expense of a mass movement for radical institutional change.

The Forgotten, Radical Martin Luther King Jr.

January 21, 2019 Matt Berman, www.nationaljournal.com Educate! Civil Rights, History, MLK, Racial Justice

By Matt Berman for National Journal. Martin Luther King Jr. was not just the safe-for-all-political-stripes civil-rights activist he is often portrayed as today. He was never just the "I Have a Dream" speech. He was an antiwar, anti-materialist activist whose views on American power would shock many of the same politicians who now scramble to sing his praises. The total spectrum of his beliefs may not be as easy as "let freedom ring," but the full MLK was much larger than the safe-for-everyone caricature that is often presented today. King's more radical worldview came out clearly in a speech to an overflow crowd of more than 3,000 people at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. "The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: 'A time comes when silence is betrayal,' " he began.

The Influence Of Gandhian Socialism On Du Bois And King

January 14, 2019 By R. Divya Nair, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Activism, MLK, Revisionism, Socialism, W.E.B. Dubois

Mohandas K. Gandhi began agitating for the independence of the Indian people from colonial rule in the early twentieth century. In 1921, he took leadership of the Indian National Congress, leading nationwide campaigns devoted to achievement of swaraj or home rule. In 1930, he opposed the tax imposed on salt by imperial Britain, leading the Dandi Satyagraha or Salt March, an act of civil disobedience aimed at overturning the colonialist economic monopoly over salt, which was a vital resource for the Indian people. In 1942, he impressed upon the British to quit India, an appeal which led to India’s liberation from colonial rule in 1947.

The Washington Post’s ‘Breakthrough’ On The MLK Murder

April 12, 2018 William F. Pepper and Andrew Kreig, Consortiumnews.com Educate! MLK, Murder, Racism

For the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder, The Washington Post last week overcame its tainted history of softball coverage and published a hard-hitting account quoting the King family’s disbelief in the guilt of convicted killer James Earl Ray. The bold, top-of-the-front-page treatment on April 2 of reporter Tom Jackman’s in-depth piece—“The Past Rediscovered: Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.?” — represents a major turning point in the treatment of the case for the past five decades by mainstream media. Print, broadcast and all too many film makers and academics have consistently soft-pedaled ballistic, eye-witness and other evidence that undermines the official story of King’s death. This time, the Post and Jackman, an experienced reporter, undertook bold but long overdue initiative.

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.

King’s Dream Included Economic Equality, Too

April 5, 2018 By Jessicah Pierre, Otherwords.org Educate! Economic inequality, History, MLK, New Economy

April 4 marks the 50th anniversary of the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, King was fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. American history rightly honors King as one of its most celebrated civil rights leaders. Growing up, I remember learning about his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. In school, my teachers always highlighted him as a peaceful, non-violent protester against segregation, and a preacher who promoted messages of love and justice for all. He was all those things. But that’s only one part of King’s legacy. King was actually very radical about his vision of change for America. He didn’t just criticize segregation — he recognized the need for deep, structural changes to our entire economic and political system.

Reflections on MLK, Jr.

April 3, 2018 Sam Jordan, Popular Resistance Educate! Martin Luther King death, MLK

Like so many, I remember precisely where I was and what I was doing when I learned of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Within hours of Dr. King’s assassination and while a participant at a presentation on the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and freedom movement options at Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia, every standard of social morality in the US had become ashes to me. A student then at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, I was founding president of the F&M Afro-American Students Society and a few months later, Black Arise, a Black Panther-inspired youth organization in Lancaster’s Black community.

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