This year will mark the 42nd anniversary of Martin Luther King' death. April 4, 1968 is widely known as the day King was assassinated.
But it was also the day that culminated in a violent crescendo that placed an exclamation point on King's 365-day odyssey.
Ironically, it was on April 4 1967 that King announced his opposition to the conflict in Vietnam.
"Now it should be incandescently clear," King told a crowd at Riverside Church in New York. "No one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam."
In what could be argued as his most courageous speech, King's remarks placed him outside the mainstream, given that many had not yet turned against the war. Moreover, opposition to King's Vietnam speech was divided almost equally between traditional white and black supporters. Many felt King had stepped outside his sphere of influence by commenting on foreign policy matters.
Time Magazine, who just four years prior, had named King as its "Man of the Year," called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi," and the Washington Post declared King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."
The next week, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where King served as co-pastor with his father, he spoke to his congregation of this tragic irony.
"The press was so noble in its applause and so noble in its praise when I said be nonviolent toward [Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner] "Bull" Connor. There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when say be nonviolent toward Bull Connor, but will curse and damn you when you say be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children."
King had expanded his definition of civil rights to include economic justice faster than the country was prepared to receive it.
This "radical" extension of the Civil Rights Movement would lead King to call for a "Poor People's Campaign. The Poor People's Campaign was King's plan to lead waves of poor people to Washington to set up a shantytown on the National Mall to show President Johnson and Congress the faces of the poor up close and personal.
While King was undergoing his own metamorphosis, he was constantly under the surveillance and harassment of the FBI. It is a sad commentary of history in that among King's adversaries included his own government. But as King prepared for his campaign to take place in the spring of 1968 something happened in Memphis.
Black sanitation workers facing wretched conditions decided to go on strike. In Memphis, low wages and inhumane conditions, black sanitation workers were not allowed to ride in the truck's cab with white workers. So when it rained, they often climbed in the back where the garbage cans got emptied.
On February 1, Echol Cole and Robert Walker were riding in the back and the mechanism went off and went into action. The driver stopped the truck, but by the time he got out of the truck, the packing mechanism had grabbed them and mashed them just like garbage and they were killed instantly.
Rev. James Lawson asked King to come to Memphis to boost the worker's morale. In the role of the Good Samaritan, King arrived on March 18, 1968 and spoke to a massive crowd at the Mason Temple, a Pentecostal church.
We know from the footage that has been indelibly etched into our minds for the past 42 years that King would prophetically speak again at Mason Temple on April 3, 1968. In that final speech, King is more radical than his public persona as he calls for an economic boycott against Memphis if the conditions of the sanitation workers are not met.
After King's death, there was a Poor People's Campaign, but without its most eloquent prophet it was ineffectual.
King's final year, though controversial to some and irrelevant to others, was an unwavering commitment to those on the underside of life.
In the words of scholar and King associate Vincent Harding, "King chose to be one with the poor. And you cannot, in a materialistic society, be one with the poor unless you're turning your face against the mainstream of the society. That's what we mean by becoming more radical, that you become someone who Mr. J. Edgar Hoover can call "the most dangerous Negro in America."
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. He is the author of "Strip Mall Patriotism: Moral Reflections of the Iraq War." E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or visit his Web site:byronspeaks.com.
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The more accurate explanation would be that he never changed his party affiliation after he registered, which initially was Republican. Moreover, King did almost everything possible short of an outright endorsement of Johnson in 1964.
"He preached personal responsibility and contribution."
I marvel at the sophomoric conservative analysis of “personal responsibility” as if one political party holds a monopoly on the key to success in this country regardless of one’s belief."
Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill.
No, anyone who follows politics knows the legacy of Everett Dirksen; you are hardly breaking new ground here. Who in GOP would you compare to Dirksen today or for that matter Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefellar. In fact there is no room in the Party for Bob Dole or Howard Baker, let alone Barry Goldwater.
Neither party represents the paragon of virtue, but the infamous “hands” and Willie Horton commercials along with Reagan’s declaration that he believes in State’s rights in Philadelphia MS, and the GOP’s systematic implementation of the Southern Strategy that ironically began in 1968, are not exactly the best recruiting tools to attract black voters, or anyone else who finds King’s message appealing.
The single biggest obstacle to the achievement of true equality in the United States is not poverty, but education. If Democrats sincerely wished to help the minority children on whose behalf they claim to labor, they would embrace school choice to help such children escape the trap of sub-standard schools. But that would offend the teachers’ unions upon which the Democrats depend for financial and "in-kind" support. So as has often been the case with the group politics of the Democratic party, African-American interests are sacrificed to other groups who have more pull.
Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30 to 40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. More than $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Do Democrats want to solve the problem, or are they interested in keeping their votong block.
http://www.ragingelephants.org/information/mission/
It has been this nation's custom, by way of its laws, to segregate by way of color. Those people on the reservations, what would you call them?
How about Bobby Jindal?
Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.
Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.
When it comes to the economic violence that has been leveled against Black Americans, neither party is of any relevance. No one Democrat or Republican has addressed that matter to any degree of significance.
One question, to whom was Dr. King preaching "responsibility and contribution"?
MLK
A man cannot ride your back unless it is bent or your spirit is broken. We may have straightened some backs up (look at our collective shiny new things), but there is much spiritual work to be done, to heal broken hearts, confused and tortured minds, and troubled spirits suffering from ancestral amnesia. The testament to the power of the brown battered people is the gains made in spite of the treachery and evil encountered on this long twisting road of existence. However, major damage inflicted upon the psyche -- witness the poor fool run out and buy expensive Nike's when he can barely read. See young predators grow up to haunt neighborhoods in selfish vicious greed, a budding seedling or transplant of masters of disaster long ago, sprouting seeds in the minds and souls of those still in the throes of struggle deep and relentless. See some other person embrace haters who hate them and even defend them – can you say brown GOP, or mocha tea party patriot?
Where are those who would carry on that struggle now.. ?
-Martin Luther King
There are a lot of people today doing what Dr. King did - in reverse. They are the Anti-Kings - or as I like to call them - the Martin Loony Kings. In his time on earth, King sought to appeal to the nation's conscience - to all that was good and (unfortunately at times) hidden in the American character. Today there are national spokespersons galore who would be happy to undo all the good work he did. Their stated purpose is to appeal to the darker demons of our nature. It's working. The number of people out there who seriously believe that our African American President is a "foreign born, Socialist Muslim" is growing by the day. Have a cup of tea, Lady?
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen NY