MLK

Turning King’s Dream Into A Nightmare

January 15, 2018 By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Educate! History, MLK, US history

Martin Luther King Day has become a yearly ritual to turn a black radical into a red-white-and-blue icon. It has become a day to celebrate ourselves for “overcoming” racism and “fulfilling” King’s dream. It is a day filled with old sound bites about little black children and little white children that, given the state of America, would enrage King. Most of our great social reformers, once they are dead, are kidnapped by the power elite and turned into harmless props of American glory. King, after all, was not only a socialist but fiercely opposed to American militarism and acutely aware, especially at the end of his life, that racial justice without economic justice was a farce. “King’s words have been appropriated by the people who rejected him in the 1960s,” said Professor James Cone, who teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York and who wrote the book “Martin & Malcolm & America.”

Remember Direct Action As Part Of Dr. King’s Legacy

January 14, 2018 Anton Woronczuk, www.therealnews.com Educate! Activism, Martin Luther King Jr, MLK

By Anton Woronczuk for the Real News. Well, Dr. King was involved in a whole range of activities in the five years that separated the March on Washington and his assassination. And yet these years have been excised. It's kind of like an assassination, a stealing of his life, a putting a cap on it, ending, somehow, in 1963, very conveniently. Dr. King was part of the changes of the '60s, but he was also changed by them, not necessarily changed in terms of his internal makeup, his worldview, but in terms of the range of topics that he as a Baptist minister thought that he could address. So everybody's familiar with the "I Have a Dream" speech. It's almost anodyne. But back in 1959--I'm going to read something to you that Dr. King wrote in a presentation. This is a dream that he had four years before his "I Have a Dream" speech.

What Can We Learn from MLK About US Elections

January 13, 2018 Richard Moser, www.befreedom.co Strategize! Elections, MLK

By Richard Moser for Be Freedom - The scale of our problems are far too great. There is far too much at stake. The problems we face are dangerous, deeply embedded, institutionalized. There is no clever, cunning or purely tactical way of addressing them. Inside baseball and palace politics have failed. We are approaching a shift in the equation of risk. The dangers we face in making the big political changes are becoming less threatening than the dangers we face in continuing on the current course. Perhaps we are already there. Let’s consider the core issues of power and social control in the US today: The Corporate Power is vast wealth wedded to political control. And, it rules America.

50 Years Later We Still Must Reject US Wars

April 4, 2017 Ajamu Baraka, www.ajamubaraka.com Resist! Ajamu Baraka, Black Power, Jr., Martin Luther King, MLK, Peace, Wars and Militarism

By Ajamu Baraka for AjamuBaraka.com. In his speech at Riverside Church, King not only criticized U.S. actions in Vietnam but identified the cultural pathologies at the center of U.S. society. “I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values,” he said. “We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” 50 years later, what rational person can honestly argue against the position that the U.S. is still the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet?

Heed King’s Words On A ‘Revolution Of Values’

April 4, 2017 Nancy Price, www.davisenterprise.com Create! MLK, MLK Speeches

By Nancy Price for The Davis Enterprise - Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” of August 1963, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, is the most widely known of his speeches, and is remembered every year on his birthday, Jan. 15. But King’s most revolutionary speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” was given on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City, a year before he died. It seems relevant today as it marked his movement from civil rights to a critique of unbridled capitalism and war. Bear in mind that King spoke at the time of the Vietnam war and the threat of Chinese communism spreading into Southeast Asia. Most broadly, he questioned a foreign policy based on interventions overseas, repression of war critics, and of colonialism and imperialism driven by resource extraction in other countries. As he declared: “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” He called for a “revolution of values,” a shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society.

Media Silence After Water Protectors And Police Clash On MLK Day

January 21, 2017 Alexandra Jacobo, www.nationofchange.org Resist! Dakota Access Pipeline, MLK, Police, Water Protectors

By Alexandra Jacobo for Nation of Change - The National Guard and Morton County Sheriff’s Department violently clashed with protesters on a day we are supposed to remember a man who dedicated his life to non-violence. On Martin Luther King day this past Monday, officials fired less-than-lethal projectiles and pepper spray at water protectors and arrested three for trespassing. 200 people marched on the Dakota Access Pipeline horizontal drill pad. According to the Morton County Sheriff Department, the three individuals (who have not yet been named) that were arrested are charged with criminal trespassing onto private property, inciting a riot and resisting arrest.

Handcuffed For MLK Quotes @ MLK Memorial On MLK Day

January 19, 2017 Matt Orfalea, www.medium.com Resist! MLK, Washington DC

By Matt Orfalea for Medium - Memorial visitors were enjoying my banners until I was approached by 5 police officers threatening to arrest me if I did not move the banners. My partner and I were confused why a wreath on stands was allowed to stay but not banners displaying MLK’s own words. They refused to explain that and when I did not remove the banners as they told me, they handcuffed me, searched me for weapons, and removed the banners from the memorial. Thankfully, they later decided not to arrest me. But I’m still confused: Why is a wreath on stands allowed to honor MLK on his day but not a banner with his own words?

On Martin Luther King Day: Revolutionary Love In An Era Of Trump

January 19, 2017 Beverly Bell, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Donald Trump, Love, MLK, Revolution

By Beverly Bell for Truth Out - In the toxic political environment of the US, love is an act of protest. At least, that is what Dr. Martin Luther King, whose 88th birthday we celebrate Monday, said in many ways. As just one example, he wrote in his book Strength to Love, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." But today, with such dangerous and violent power at play, is love a priority? Should it, or even can it be a fundament of our organizing and mobilization, especially amongst the sectors suffering the rampant attacks and threats?

Unanimous Jury In 1999 Civil Trial Found Gov Assassinated Dr. King

January 16, 2017 Kirsten West Savali, www.newsone.com Educate! Assassination, Black History, MLK

By Kirsten West Savali for Newsome - Though the United States government has wrapped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy in the American flag, waving his words to symbolize racial harmony and patriotic solidarity even as institutionalized White supremacy remains embedded in policies detrimental to the very Black community he tirelessly strived to uplift, very little is spoken of the fact that a Memphis jury found the United States government guilty of conspiring to assassinate Dr. King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.

Creating Truth & Transformation Drawing On MLK + 50

January 5, 2017 Rabbi Arthur Waskow, www/theshalomcenter.org Strategize! Donald Trump, MLK, Transformation

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow for the Shalom Center. The election brought an unexpected outpouring of the “Old American left-outs” – blue-collar white men and women –-- into a moment’s triumph. We have already seen a first response from the “New American left-outs” in the spontaneous demonstrations that erupted all over America within 24 hoursof the election, and in many commitments to resistance and opposition that have arisen since. We need to crystallize this outburst into a broadly embracing movement of movements that can pursue acts of nonviolent, loving, assertive, and empowering creativity. Acts that reach across the present barricades to make sense to both the “Old” and “New” Americas, to nurture the seeds of a new society and to challenge institutions that are domineering and destructive.

When King Came Up Against Chicago Racism

August 22, 2016 Staff, www.socialistworker.org Educate! Chicago, MLK, Racism

By Staff of Socialist Worker - Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference took on a new challenge: expose and overcome racial discrimination in Chicago. Here, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, explains the backdrop to this new struggle of the civil rights movement and tells the story of a challenge to institutional racism in 1960s America's second-largest city. THE MAIN goals of the Southern civil rights movement included ending Jim Crow and securing the right of African Americans to vote across the South.

Edward Snowden Invokes Martin Luther King To Defend Whistleblowing

May 14, 2016 Melissa Chan, www.time.com Resist! Edward Snowden, MLK

By Melissa Chan for Time - Edward Snowden on Thursday invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent civil disobedience to condemn the U.S. for how it treats whistleblowers, warning that others may not stand up for alleged wrongdoing if they fear punishment. The former National Security Agency contractor, who in 2013 revealed a trove of classified secrets on the intelligence agency’s surveillance programs, defended his leaks as an act of “public service” while virtually addressing a crowd at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

Black Lives Matter Commandeers Denver’s MLK Day Marade

January 22, 2016 Laura Bond, www.coloradoindependent.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Denver, MLK

By Laura Bond for The Colorado Independent - Roughly 2,000 demonstrators took control of Denver’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day march, turning what they say has become a corporate event into a day of protest against police violence. The activists decried Mayor Michael Hancock for failing to hold accountable the sheriff’s deputies who in November restrained black, homeless street preacher Michael Lee Marshall into unconsciousness. Nine days later he died. His death was ruled a homicide by the city coroner.

For Black Lives Matter, MLK’s Kind Of Activism Isn’t Only Way

January 21, 2016 Harry Bruinius, www.csmonitor.com Strategize! #BlackLivesMatter, Activism, Black Lives Matter (BLM), MLK

By Harry Bruinius for The Christian Science Monitor - NEW YORK — In years past, the civil rights mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. was taken up by other charismatic leaders, political figureheads such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton – each a skilled orator with roots in the black church, which in many ways is still the center of community life and politics for black Americans. But as the country remembers Dr. King on Monday, a new generation of activists is doing things differently. Many within the Black Lives Matter movement are uncomfortable with venerating any "great man" of the past, and they reject the idea that any dynamic figurehead should embody their struggle today.

Movement Reclaims MLK Legacy

January 19, 2016 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Inequality, militarism, MLK, Poverty, Racism

By Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. This Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend there was a call by #BlackLivesMatter to #ReclaimMLK. Events were held all over the country responding to the call and the radical Martin Luther King, jr was brought to people's hearts; not only the King who expressed his dream on racism, but the King who questioned the unfairness in the US capitalist economy and the long history of a foreign policy dominated by militarism. At the end of his life not only was he speaking clearly on these issues but he was organizing around poverty, planning a Poor People's March to Washington, DC. This march continued after his death and Resurrection City, an earlier occupation of the city, that focused on poverty and economic issues. The election year of 2016 is an opportunity to push forward a Black Agenda, not by supporting any particular candidate but by pushing all candidates. We must push to make up for the disinvestment and racially unfair treatment of black communities.

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