Martin Luther King (1 Viewer)

[timschochet]

Marchers to honor King in Memphis today

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Presidential candidates, civil rights leaders, labor activists and thousands of everyday citizens are coming together Friday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the 40th anniversary of his death.

On the 40th anniversary of his assassination, King is to be honored as a champion of peace in the city where he died.

"Here was a man who understood nonviolence at a depth that I had never known before," said C.T. Vivian, a former King associate.

"The whole nation flinched" when King was killed by a rifle shot on April 4, 1968, said writer Cynthia Griggs Fleming, one of the many historians, commentators and activists in town for panel discussions and lectures on King's legacy.

King advised his followers to keep working for equal rights for all citizens, "to keep on moving," no matter what obstacles they faced, Fleming said in a talk Thursday at a Memphis church.

"Don't be so consumed by the pain that you don't hear the message," she said.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain were scheduled to take part in the anniversary day events that were to include a "recommitment march" through Memphis and the laying of wreaths at the site of King's assassination. Sen. Barack Obama will be campaigning in Indiana.

King was cut down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel while helping organize a strike by Memphis sanitation workers, then some of the poorest of the city's working poor.

His son, Martin Luther King III, wrote in an opinion piece published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday that the nation is still plagued by poverty. He urged presidential candidates to vow to appoint a cabinet-level officer who would help the poor.

"We're not doing anywhere near enough," he said Friday during an interview with his sister, Bernice, on the "Today" show.

The National Civil Rights Museum opened in 1991 at the former motel, which now holds most of the exhibits tracing the history of America's struggle for equal rights. The museum also encompasses the flophouse across the street from which confessed killer James Earl Ray admitted firing the fatal shot. Ray died in prison in 1998.

King was a champion of nonviolent protest for social change, and his writings and speeches still stir older followers and new ones alike, said Vivian, who helped organize lunch-counter sit-ins in Nashville in 1960 and rode on a "freedom bus" through Mississippi.

"The world still listens to Martin," he said. "There are people who didn't reach for him then who reach for him now. They want to know this man. What did he say? What did he think?"

Other tributes were being held around the country. In Congress, House and Senate leaders and lawmakers who once worked with the civil rights leader marked the anniversary with a tribute Thursday in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.

"Because of the leadership of this man we rose up out of fear and became willing to put our bodies on the line," said Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a companion of King in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

In Indianapolis, Ethel Kennedy was scheduled to make brief remarks during a ceremony Friday evening at what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Park. Her late husband Robert Kennedy gave a passionate speech there the night of King's assassination that was credited with quelling violence in the city.

In Atlanta, the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site was commemorating the anniversary with the opening Friday of a special exhibit chronicling the final days and hours before King's death, as well as his funeral procession through his hometown five days later.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is the wagon that was drawn by two mules as it carried King's casket from his funeral at Ebenezer Baptist Church to Morehouse College, his alma mater.

Memphis has also been in the news lately because of the success of the Memphis Tigers, who play UCLA in the national NCAA Division I college basketball semifinal in San Antonio on Saturday. Coach John Calipari had copies of King's "I Have a Dream" speech for his players to read after practice Wednesday, along with a King biography, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson met the team for a personal history lesson.

 

[timschochet]

Regarding the poll, it is interesting (at least to me) to wonder about what would have happened had MLK lived. I doubt there would be any MLK holiday if he had died of national causes. Would he be taught in schools? Probably so, in the same way Rosa Parks is. But not quite as revered.

 

[timschochet]

Here's an interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal by Juan Williams which compares King and Obama. I don't agree with all of it, but there are some intriguing points:

Obama and King

By JUAN WILLIAMS

April 4, 2008

Martin Luther King Jr. died at age 39; today, the 40th anniversary of his death, is the first time he has been gone longer than he lived.

Figures such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have tried to claim his place on the American stage. But at most they have achieved fame and wealth. What separated King from any would-be successor was his moral authority. He towered above the high walls of racial suspicion by speaking truth to all sides.

Now comes Barack Obama, a black man and a plausible national leader, who appeals across racial lines. But to his black and white supporters, Mr. Obama increasingly represents different things.

The initial base of support for Mr. Obama's presidential campaign came from young whites – who saw in him the ability to take the nation to a place where, to quote from King's "I Have A Dream" speech, "we shall be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

Black voters rallied to Mr. Obama after whites in Iowa and New Hampshire showed they were willing to vote for him. Mr. Obama spoke directly to charges that he was not "black enough," that he was not a child of the civil rights movement because he grew up in Hawaii and has an Ivy League education, that he is too young, it is not his time, and even that his campaign is too risky because white racists might kill him.

Mr. Obama, his wife Michelle and supporters such as Oprah Winfrey make the case to black voters that he is the fruit of the struggles of King and others. They argue that this generation of black Americans does not have to wait for their turn to reach for the ultimate political power of the presidency.

Mr. Obama has carried a message of pride and self-sufficiency to black voters nationwide, who have rewarded him with support reaching 80% and higher. His candidacy has become, as the headline on Ebony magazine put it, a matter of having a black man as president "In Our Lifetime."

Among his white supporters, race is coincidental, not central, to his political identity. Mr. Obama is to them the candidate who personifies the promise of equal opportunity for all. But as black support has become central to his victories, this idealistic view has been increasingly at war with the portrayal, crafted by the senator to win black support, of him as the black candidate. The terrible tension between these racially distinct views now surrounds and threatens his campaign.

So far, Mr. Obama has been content to let black people have their vision of him while white people hold to a separate, segregated reality. He is a politician and, unlike King, his goal is winning votes, not changing hearts. Still, it is a key break from the King tradition to sell different messages to different audiences based on race, and to fail to challenge racial divisions in the nation.

Mr. Obama's major speech on race last month was forced from him only after a political crisis erupted: It became widely known that he'd sat for 20 years in the pews of a church where Rev. Jeremiah Wright lashed out at white people. The minister cursed America as worthy of damnation, made lewd suggestions about the nature of President Clinton's relationship with black voters, and embraced the paranoid idea that the white government was spreading AIDS among black people.

Here is where the racial tension at the heart of Mr. Obama's campaign flared into view. He either shared these beliefs or, lacking good judgment, decided it politically expedient for an ambitious young black politician trying to prove his solidarity with all things black, to be associated with these rants. His judgment and leadership on the critical issue of race is in question.

While speaking to black people, King never condescended to offer Rev. Wright-style diatribes or conspiracy theories. He did not paint black people as victims. To the contrary, he spoke about black people as American patriots who believed in the democratic ideals of the country, in nonviolence and the Judeo-Christian ethic, even as they overcame slavery, discrimination and disadvantage. King challenged white America to do the same, to live up to their ideals and create racial unity. He challenged white Christians, asking them how they could treat their fellow black Christians as anything but brothers in Christ.

When King spoke about the racist past, he gloried in black people beating the odds to win equal rights by arming "ourselves with dignity and self-respect." He expressed regret that some black leaders reveled in grievance, malice and self-indulgent anger in place of a focus on strong families, education and love of God. Even in the days before Congress passed civil rights laws, King spoke to black Americans about the pride that comes from "assuming primary responsibility" for achieving "first class citizenship."

Last March in Selma, Ala., Mr. Obama appeared on the verge of breaking away from the merchants of black grievance and victimization. At a commemoration of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights, he spoke in a King-like voice. He focused on traditions of black sacrifice, idealism and the need for taking personal responsibility for building strong black families and communities. He said black people should never "deny that its gotten better," even as the movement goes on to improve schools and provide good health care for all Americans. He then challenged black America, by saying that "government alone can't solve all those problems . . . it is not enough just to ask what the government can do for us -- it's important for us to ask what we can do for ourselves."

Mr. Obama added that better education for black students begins with black parents visiting their children's teachers, as well as turning off the television so children can focus on homework. He expressed alarm over the lack of appreciation for education in the black community: "I don't know who taught them that reading and writing and conjugating your verbs were something white. We've got to get over that mentality." King, he added later, believed that black America has to first "transform ourselves in order to transform the world."

But as his campaign made headway with black voters, Mr. Obama no longer spoke about the responsibility and the power of black America to appeal to the conscience and highest ideals of the nation. He no longer asks black people to let go of the grievance culture to transcend racial arguments and transform the world.

He has stopped all mention of government's inability to create strong black families, while the black community accepts a 70% out-of-wedlock birth rate. Half of black and Hispanic children drop out of high school, but he no longer touches on the need for parents to convey a love of learning to their children. There is no mention in his speeches of the history of expensive but ineffective government programs that encourage dependency. He fails to point out the failures of too many poverty programs, given the 25% poverty rate in black America.

And he chooses not to confront the poisonous "thug life" culture in rap music that glorifies drug use and crime.

Instead the senator, in a full political pander, is busy excusing Rev. Wright's racial attacks as the right of the Rev.-Wright generation of black Americans to define the nation's future by their past. He stretches compassion to the breaking point by equating his white grandmother's private concerns about black men on the street with Rev. Wright's public stirring of racial division.

And he wasted time in his Philadelphia speech on race by saying he can't "disown" Rev. Wright any more than he could "disown the black community." No one has asked him to disown Rev. Wright. Only in a later appearance on "The View" television show did he say that he would have left the church if Rev. Wright had not retired and not acknowledged his offensive language.

As the nation tries to recall the meaning of Martin Luther King today, Mr. Obama's campaign has become a mirror reflecting where we are on race 40 years after the assassination. Mr. Obama's success has moved forward the story of American race relations; King would have been thrilled with his political triumphs.

But when Barack Obama, arguably the best of this generation of black or white leaders, finds it easy to sit in Rev. Wright's pews and nod along with wacky and bitterly divisive racial rhetoric, it does call his judgment into question. And it reveals a continuing crisis in racial leadership.

What would Jesus do? There is no question he would have left that church.

Mr. Williams is a political analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News

 

[Clayton Gray]

Don't see how the loss of King was anything but a bad thing for race relations. Seems like an easy leap to suggest that 40 more years of his presence would have helped a great deal. At the very least, he would give the black community a national example of how to cope with problems in a constructive manner. After his death, no one was able to fully fill that void in a positive way.

 

[P Boy]

Fascinating to think of what King and the Civil Rights movement did 40 years ago and the impact on the country in those 40 years since, and then to think that we have a Presidential candidate running for right now who turns to a blatantly racist person for counsel, and that candidate is revered by his followers and is given essentially a pass on his extermely poor judgment.

 

[Rayderr]

Some causes need a martyr, and civil rights was one of them. He still would've had an impact if he lived, but I think dying for his cause helped far more than anything he could've done had he lived.

 

[timschochet]

Fascinating to think of what King and the Civil Rights movement did 40 years ago and the impact on the country in those 40 years since, and then to think that we have a Presidential candidate running for right now who turns to a blatantly racist person for counsel, and that candiadte is revered by his followers and is given essentially a pass on his extermely poor judgment.

Although not an Obama supporter, I'm one of those who give him a pass on this. Can you say with any authority that MLK would have rejected every facet of Jeremiah Wright's speechs? Don't they in fact come from the same tradition and heritage? I think King would have turned away from the anti-Israeli talk, and he would have been skeptical of the accusation of the government spreading aids, but I suspect he may have seen America as partly to blame for 9/11.

 

[P Boy]

Although not an Obama supporter, I'm one of those who give him a pass on this. Can you say with any authority that MLK would have rejected every facet of Jeremiah Wright's speechs?

Every facet? No. But the predominance of his positions? Yes. King was no saint, but he did believe in moving the relationship amongst different peoples forward and was an incredibly dynamic force in doing so. I don't think any rational person can say that about Wright.

 

[SofaKings]

Don't see how the loss of King was anything but a bad thing for race relations. Seems like an easy leap to suggest that 40 more years of his presence would have helped a great deal. At the very least, he would give the black community a national example of how to cope with problems in a constructive manner. After his death, no one was able to fully fill that void in a positive way.

The loss of King hurt the Civil Rights movement. He was the leader. He galvanized and brought together the organization, moving it forward through conflict and strife.

 

[timschochet]

Don't see how the loss of King was anything but a bad thing for race relations. Seems like an easy leap to suggest that 40 more years of his presence would have helped a great deal. At the very least, he would give the black community a national example of how to cope with problems in a constructive manner. After his death, no one was able to fully fill that void in a positive way.

The loss of King hurt the Civil Rights movement. He was the leader. He galvanized and brought together the organization, moving it forward through conflict and strife.

I honestly don't know if I agree with this. The main goals of the civil rights movement during MLK's lifetime involved ending legal discrimination. These goals were for the most part achieved prior to his death. Since then, the goals of the civil rights movement have been to improve the economic conditions of Blacks, as well as demanding more representation and combatting private discrimination wherever it is found. Would MLK's presence have helped with any of this? I don't know.

 

[SofaKings]

Don't see how the loss of King was anything but a bad thing for race relations. Seems like an easy leap to suggest that 40 more years of his presence would have helped a great deal. At the very least, he would give the black community a national example of how to cope with problems in a constructive manner. After his death, no one was able to fully fill that void in a positive way.

The loss of King hurt the Civil Rights movement. He was the leader. He galvanized and brought together the organization, moving it forward through conflict and strife.

I honestly don't know if I agree with this. The main goals of the civil rights movement during MLK's lifetime involved ending legal discrimination. These goals were for the most part achieved prior to his death. Since then, the goals of the civil rights movement have been to improve the economic conditions of Blacks, as well as demanding more representation and combatting private discrimination wherever it is found. Would MLK's presence have helped with any of this? I don't know.

True, he probably would have retired to his cozy cottage in the alley in Albany, GA.I think MLK would have been a GREAT voice for the transition from legal discrimination. Look at the leaders since? Have any of them come close to him? Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton? I think Thurgood Marshall would have done more help if he hadn't accepted a Supreme Court position.

 

[Ditkaless Wonders]

Martyrs cam strengthen or galvinize a cause. On the other hand the vacuum of leadership passed to the Rhymin Reverend and Weird Al Sharpton who both tried to cloak themselves in the King legacy but both ignored it. They asked not that their children be judged on the content of their character as had King. Rather they wanted entitlements based upon skin color.

In the end I am going to have to say it would have been a great service to the cause to have kept idiots like Jackson and Sharpton in the background. One could have pictured King perhaps being our nations first black candidate for the Presidency.

 

[timschochet]

Martyrs cam strengthen or galvinize a cause. On the other hand the vacuum of leadership passed to the Rhymin Reverend and Weird Al Sharpton who both tried to cloak themselves in the King legacy but both ignored it. They asked not that their children be judged on the content of their character as had King. Rather they wanted entitlements based upon skin color. In the end I am going to have to say it would have been a great service to the cause to have kept idiots like Jackson and Sharpton in the background. One could have pictured King perhaps being our nations first black candidate for the Presidency.

Are you saying that had King lived, he would not have been a proponent of entitlements and affirmative action?

 

[Clayton Gray]

Don't see how the loss of King was anything but a bad thing for race relations. Seems like an easy leap to suggest that 40 more years of his presence would have helped a great deal. At the very least, he would give the black community a national example of how to cope with problems in a constructive manner. After his death, no one was able to fully fill that void in a positive way.

The loss of King hurt the Civil Rights movement. He was the leader. He galvanized and brought together the organization, moving it forward through conflict and strife.

I honestly don't know if I agree with this. The main goals of the civil rights movement during MLK's lifetime involved ending legal discrimination. These goals were for the most part achieved prior to his death. Since then, the goals of the civil rights movement have been to improve the economic conditions of Blacks, as well as demanding more representation and combatting private discrimination wherever it is found. Would MLK's presence have helped with any of this? I don't know.

King was the leader of the civil rights movement. Assuming he didn't turn into a hermit, I'm confident in saying the movement's goals would have been shaped by King. I'm also confident is saying he would have been successful in reaching those goals.

 

[Clayton Gray]

Are you saying that had King lived, he would not have been a proponent of entitlements and affirmative action?

I would guess no on this.

 

[Mjolnirs]

Martyrs cam strengthen or galvinize a cause. On the other hand the vacuum of leadership passed to the Rhymin Reverend and Weird Al Sharpton who both tried to cloak themselves in the King legacy but both ignored it. They asked not that their children be judged on the content of their character as had King. Rather they wanted entitlements based upon skin color. In the end I am going to have to say it would have been a great service to the cause to have kept idiots like Jackson and Sharpton in the background. One could have pictured King perhaps being our nations first black candidate for the Presidency.

Are you saying that had King lived, he would not have been a proponent of entitlements and affirmative action?

That is an interesting question. I've always thought that his goals of equality and unity are not in line with the perception many have of the NAACP as a divisive organization. Would that be different had he lived?

 

[Darth Cheney]

the legacy of King benefited from his early demise. He's kind of like Kurt Cobain, James Dean and Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[timschochet]

I want to unpack this a bit because I think there are some misconceptions about King here. Specifically, because the controversial issue of affirmative action only became law after his death, it has been the tendency of those opposed to entitlements to use King's earlier speeches to suggest that he also would have been opposed to this. In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.

King also was at the time of his death a vocal opponent of the Vietnam war and his rhetoric on this subject and on America's role in the world was in some ways very similar to Jeremiah Wright. I think King, had he lived, would have become marginalized as a liberal; revered among liberals, but not among conservatives. I don't believe there would be any great difference in race relations today.

 

[SofaKings]

I want to unpack this a bit because I think there are some misconceptions about King here. Specifically, because the controversial issue of affirmative action only became law after his death, it has been the tendency of those opposed to entitlements to use King's earlier speeches to suggest that he also would have been opposed to this. In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.King also was at the time of his death a vocal opponent of the Vietnam war and his rhetoric on this subject and on America's role in the world was in some ways very similar to Jeremiah Wright. I think King, had he lived, would have become marginalized as a liberal; revered among liberals, but not among conservatives. I don't believe there would be any great difference in race relations today.

I love how your true thoughts come out later in a thread you start. It will be so anticlimactic when you "all of a sudden" start supporting Obama.

 

[Clayton Gray]

In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.

Link to where King wanted to judge people by the color of their skin?

 

[P Boy]

In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.

Link to where King wanted to judge people by the color of their skin?

Body Shot! I was thinking the same thing when I saw the "point in fact".

 

[timschochet]

I want to unpack this a bit because I think there are some misconceptions about King here. Specifically, because the controversial issue of affirmative action only became law after his death, it has been the tendency of those opposed to entitlements to use King's earlier speeches to suggest that he also would have been opposed to this. In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.King also was at the time of his death a vocal opponent of the Vietnam war and his rhetoric on this subject and on America's role in the world was in some ways very similar to Jeremiah Wright. I think King, had he lived, would have become marginalized as a liberal; revered among liberals, but not among conservatives. I don't believe there would be any great difference in race relations today.

I love how your true thoughts come out later in a thread you start. It will be so anticlimactic when you "all of a sudden" start supporting Obama.

How brilliant of you! But that will not happen; I guarantee it. I like Obama, but could never support him. And I was not thinking about affirmative action or Jeremiah Wright when I started this thread. These ideas occured to me later, after these issues were brought up by other people.

 

[timschochet]

In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.

Link to where King wanted to judge people by the color of their skin?

Myth #1: King wanted only equal rights, not special privileges and would have opposed affirmative action, quotas, reparations, and the other policies pursued by today’s civil rights leadership.This is probably the most repeated myth about King. Writing on National Review Online, There Heritage Foundation’s Matthew Spalding wrote a piece entitled "Martin Luther King’s Conservative Mind," where he wrote, "An agenda that advocates quotas, counting by race and set-asides takes us away from King's vision."The problem with this view is that King openly advocated quotas and racial set-asides. He wrote that the "Negro today is not struggling for some abstract, vague rights, but for concrete improvement in his way of life." When equal opportunity laws failed to achieve this, King looked for other ways. In his book Where Do We Go From Here, he suggested that "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis." To do this he expressed support for quotas. In a 1968 Playboy interview, he said, "If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas." King was more than just talk in this regard. Working through his Operation Breadbasket, King threatened boycotts of businesses that did not hire blacks in proportion to their population. King was even an early proponent of reparations. In his 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait, he wrote,No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries…Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of a the labor of one human being by another. This law should be made to apply for American Negroes. The payment should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law. Predicting that critics would note that many whites were equally disadvantaged, King claimed that his program, which he called the "Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged" would help poor whites as well. This is because once the blacks received reparations, the poor whites would realize that their real enemy was rich whites.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

I want to unpack this a bit because I think there are some misconceptions about King here. Specifically, because the controversial issue of affirmative action only became law after his death, it has been the tendency of those opposed to entitlements to use King's earlier speeches to suggest that he also would have been opposed to this. In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.King also was at the time of his death a vocal opponent of the Vietnam war and his rhetoric on this subject and on America's role in the world was in some ways very similar to Jeremiah Wright. I think King, had he lived, would have become marginalized as a liberal; revered among liberals, but not among conservatives. I don't believe there would be any great difference in race relations today.

I completely agree with timschochet here. King was a radical. If he were still alive, he would be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

 

[scorchy]

King also was at the time of his death a vocal opponent of the Vietnam war and his rhetoric on this subject and on America's role in the world was in some ways very similar to Jeremiah Wright. I think King, had he lived, would have become marginalized as a liberal; revered among liberals, but not among conservatives. I don't believe there would be any great difference in race relations today.

I think this in an important point. Some King quotes on Vietnam and America:

We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not "ready" for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.

I have no doubt that many of the folks on the right would be calling him a traitor and America hater if he said the same things about Iraq today.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.

Link to where King wanted to judge people by the color of their skin?

Pretty much every person I can think of that was part of MLK's circle supports affirmative action: John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Corretta Scott King, etc. Why would you believe that he would have been the one outlier?

 

[timschochet]

In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.

Link to where King wanted to judge people by the color of their skin?

Pretty much every person I can think of that was part of MLK's circle supports affirmative action: John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Corretta Scott King, etc. Why would you believe that he would have been the one outlier?

The misrepresentation about this is part of a movement by conservatives to attempt to "adopt" King. But the more I think about it, there is something deeper going on, as well:I have no problem admiring the life of Martin Luther King, and his great accomplishments, but disagreeing with him about affirmative action and several other things he wrote, including some very radical ideas he held about America. But people seem to have trouble with this; they can't admire someone without having that someone agree with all of their viewpoints. There is very much an "either-or" factor in our society; either you're good or your bad. For these people, it can't be accepted that there may be negative elements about MLK, and it can't be accepted that there may be good elements about Jeremiah Wright, for instance. We revere King and I think we should, but this does not make him a saint; America does not have saints.

 

[P Boy]

I completely agree with timschochet here. King was a radical. If he were still alive, he would be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

You mean that the Republicans today are the same as the Dixiecrats of the 60s? You know, the Democrats who tried in vain to block the 1964 Civil Rights Act (lead in part by that stallwart of the Democratic party, Robert Byrd, and his attempted filibuster)?

 

[Clayton Gray]

In point of fact, MLK was in favor of affirmative action.

Link to where King wanted to judge people by the color of their skin?

Pretty much every person I can think of that was part of MLK's circle supports affirmative action: John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Corretta Scott King, etc. Why would you believe that he would have been the one outlier?

I was obviously sucked in by that speech.

 

[D_House]

I completely agree with timschochet here. King was a radical. If he were still alive, he would be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

You mean that the Republicans today are the same as the Dixiecrats of the 60s? You know, the Democrats who tried in vain to block the 1964 Civil Rights Act (lead in part by that stallwart of the Democratic party, Robert Byrd, and his attempted filibuster)?

He was talking about conservatives, not Republicans or Democrats. I think most people are familiar with the policy shifts of the parties over the years.

 

[P Boy]

I completely agree with timschochet here. King was a radical. If he were still alive, he would be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

You mean that the Republicans today are the same as the Dixiecrats of the 60s? You know, the Democrats who tried in vain to block the 1964 Civil Rights Act (lead in part by that stallwart of the Democratic party, Robert Byrd, and his attempted filibuster)?

He was talking about conservatives, not Republicans or Democrats. I think most people are familiar with the policy shifts of the parties over the years.

Sorry. You mean that the Republicans conservatives today are the same as the Dixiecrats southern racist white trash of the 60s?

 

[D_House]

I completely agree with timschochet here. King was a radical. If he were still alive, he would be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

You mean that the Republicans today are the same as the Dixiecrats of the 60s? You know, the Democrats who tried in vain to block the 1964 Civil Rights Act (lead in part by that stallwart of the Democratic party, Robert Byrd, and his attempted filibuster)?

He was talking about conservatives, not Republicans or Democrats. I think most people are familiar with the policy shifts of the parties over the years.

Sorry. You mean that the Republicans conservatives today are the same as the Dixiecrats southern racist white trash of the 60s?

I don't mean anything, it's you who is making this comparison.

 

[shining path]

I completely agree with timschochet here. King was a radical. If he were still alive, he would be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

You mean that the Republicans today are the same as the Dixiecrats of the 60s? You know, the Democrats who tried in vain to block the 1964 Civil Rights Act (lead in part by that stallwart of the Democratic party, Robert Byrd, and his attempted filibuster)?

I think most people are familiar with the policy shifts of the parties over the years.

Man, reading this board, I just don't know.

 

[shining path]

I completely agree with timschochet here. King was a radical. If he were still alive, he would be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

You mean that the Republicans today are the same as the Dixiecrats of the 60s? You know, the Democrats who tried in vain to block the 1964 Civil Rights Act (lead in part by that stallwart of the Democratic party, Robert Byrd, and his attempted filibuster)?

He was talking about conservatives, not Republicans or Democrats. I think most people are familiar with the policy shifts of the parties over the years.

Sorry. You mean that the Republicans conservatives today are the same as the Dixiecrats southern racist white trash of the 60s?

I think what fatguy was saying in the original quote is that if MLK were alive today, he'd be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

 

[P Boy]

I think what fatguy was saying in the original quote is that if MLK were alive today, he'd be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

I'm a conservative, and I'm certain that would not be my position.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

I think what fatguy was saying in the original quote is that if MLK were alive today, he'd be painted today by conservatives as a philandering anti-American phony nutjob.

I'm a conservative, and I'm certain that would not be my position.

Even if he spent the last 40 years giving speeches and sermons similar to those made by Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson?

 

[P Boy]

Even if he spent the last 40 years giving speeches and sermons similar to those made by Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson?

Why would he denegrate himself, sabotage his vision, and lower himself to what Wright and Jackson put forth as "leadership"?

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Even if he spent the last 40 years giving speeches and sermons similar to those made by Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson?

Why would he denegrate himself, sabotage his vision, and lower himself to what Wright and Jackson put forth as "leadership"?

One question at a time. Is your answer that you would think he was a philandering anti-American phony nutjob, if he made speeches similar to Wright and Jackson?

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Anyone else want to say what they think MLK would be saying if he were alive today?

 

[wikkidpissah]

i was around & politically active (campaigning for Clean Gene) when King was assassinated. i had a personal awareness of racial politics because, 2 yrs earlier, my family moved out of Boston (Eggleston Sq, JP) literally because Roxbury crossed Washington St. i maintained friendships back in the hood and was, therefore, more on the Malcolm X/Panther side of the race issue (brought a Panther friend out to speak at my high school - hilarious). at the time, MLK was generally seen as an appeaser & a necessary evil by the people who worked hardest for change.

my opinion of Dr. King has evolved since his death, but not because i've mellowed. what we miss most about him is the enormity of his heart. it takes an incredible soul to be the conscience of a nation & what i miss most about King and the Kennedys (who i didnt much care for either at the time, esp. Bobby) is that they were at the center of the view of America that said, "we're better than this and we have to always be better than this, because the very idea of America is progress in all things." god, do i miss the Anerica that thought that way.

i generally try to avoid the politics & religion threads because they are largely for people who are in it for the argument. one need look no farther than the page count of hot-button issue threads to see that no one is looking for solutions in these grudge matches. Dr. King would have been as bothered by the modern condition of religion and the politics of polarization as he would be by the state of race relations. for all his faults, his best talent was for working to find what we can agree upon. he represented a christian ethic as mightily as the Christian Religion.

i will go to my grave believing that most Americans are essentially the same - conservative until their own are taken care of and then of a desire to be as liberal as they can afford to be. agree or disagree, the man was a hero, a champion of the good life for all. if you want to find a way to honor Martin Luther King on this awful anniversary, cross the street to shake the hand of an enemy, give a leg up to someone in need, find a new way to add to the life that has been so good to you. go to the mountain top, my friends, and look out upon the promised land. nufced

 

[IvanKaramazov]

the legacy of King benefited from his early demise. He's kind of like Kurt Cobain, James Dean and Jesus of Nazareth.

I agree with this sentiment (aside from the gratuitous swipe at Christianity). Who knows how MLK would have "evolved" if he had lived on for several more decades? As things actually played out, Americans are left with a highly-idealized version of King in which he is fighting against clear, obvious injustices. Jesse Jackson used to fight against those same injustices, but I think it's safe to say that the doesn't enjoy the same kind of stature that King enjoys. I'm not saying that MLK would definitely have fallen to Jesse Jackson's level. It's just that nobody can say that such a thing is clearly impossible. Nobody knows, even if they think they do.

 

[shining path]

Anyone else want to say what they think MLK would be saying if he were alive today?

I don't know about MLK, but clearly Jesus would be an Obamanaut.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Anyone else want to say what they think MLK would be saying if he were alive today?

[bobDole]Martin and I have had our differences over the years, but there's one thing that's brought us together.[/bobDole][MLK]As men get older, sometimes we struggle with ED.[/MLK]:vivaviagra:

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Anyone else want to say what they think MLK would be saying if he were alive today?

[bobDole]Martin and I have had our differences over the years, but there's one thing that's brought us together.[/bobDole][MLK]As men get older, sometimes we struggle with ED.[/MLK]:vivaviagra:

"Sit in" or "Sit and Spin"?

 

[GSteps]

i was around & politically active (campaigning for Clean Gene) when King was assassinated. i had a personal awareness of racial politics because, 2 yrs earlier, my family moved out of Boston (Eggleston Sq, JP) literally because Roxbury crossed Washington St. i maintained friendships back in the hood and was, therefore, more on the Malcolm X/Panther side of the race issue (brought a Panther friend out to speak at my high school - hilarious). at the time, MLK was generally seen as an appeaser & a necessary evil by the people who worked hardest for change.

my opinion of Dr. King has evolved since his death, but not because i've mellowed. what we miss most about him is the enormity of his heart. it takes an incredible soul to be the conscience of a nation & what i miss most about King and the Kennedys (who i didnt much care for either at the time, esp. Bobby) is that they were at the center of the view of America that said, "we're better than this and we have to always be better than this, because the very idea of America is progress in all things." god, do i miss the Anerica that thought that way.

i generally try to avoid the politics & religion threads because they are largely for people who are in it for the argument. one need look no farther than the page count of hot-button issue threads to see that no one is looking for solutions in these grudge matches. Dr. King would have been as bothered by the modern condition of religion and the politics of polarization as he would be by the state of race relations. for all his faults, his best talent was for working to find what we can agree upon. he represented a christian ethic as mightily as the Christian Religion.

i will go to my grave believing that most Americans are essentially the same - conservative until their own are taken care of and then of a desire to be as liberal as they can afford to be. agree or disagree, the man was a hero, a champion of the good life for all. if you want to find a way to honor Martin Luther King on this awful anniversary, cross the street to shake the hand of an enemy, give a leg up to someone in need, find a new way to add to the life that has been so good to you. go to the mountain top, my friends, and look out upon the promised land. nufced

 

[P Boy]

Even if he spent the last 40 years giving speeches and sermons similar to those made by Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson?

Why would he denegrate himself, sabotage his vision, and lower himself to what Wright and Jackson put forth as "leadership"?

One question at a time. Is your answer that you would think he was a philandering anti-American phony nutjob, if he made speeches similar to Wright and Jackson?

Why don't you stop being so coy with trying to spring the little trap that you think you are so cleverly setting and make your argument?

 

[scorchy]

I think the argument is pretty clear. MLK is on record as being very critical of America-- not just on race but on its international policy as well. If MLK had spent the next 40 years reiterating statements such as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government" and "we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long," he would be dismissed by many as an anti-American radical.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Even if he spent the last 40 years giving speeches and sermons similar to those made by Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson?

Why would he denegrate himself, sabotage his vision, and lower himself to what Wright and Jackson put forth as "leadership"?

One question at a time. Is your answer that you would think he was a philandering anti-American phony nutjob, if he made speeches similar to Wright and Jackson?

Why don't you stop being so coy with trying to spring the little trap that you think you are so cleverly setting and make your argument?

I don't have any great "a-ha" trap waiting for your response. I just think, based on everything I know about King and other civil rights leaders, his views today would be pretty close to those of Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson. I think it's a huge leap to think that Dr. King would have moved in a completely different direction from his associates and contemporaries.

 

[P Boy]

I don't have any great "a-ha" trap waiting for your response. I just think, based on everything I know about King and other civil rights leaders, his views today would be pretty close to those of Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson. I think it's a huge leap to think that Dr. King would have moved in a completely diferent direction from his associates and contemporaries.

So this is the message you are hearing from Jackson & Wright?With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

...

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Because if it is, I'd appreciate that you take the time to alleviate my ignorance in this matter.

 

[AussieOyOyOy]

I believe that his legacy benefitted from his early demise. His latter years were much more focused on socialist reform than civil rights. Decades down the road, it's much easier to gloss over this and focus on the civil rights platform, due to his limited time on stage. Had he many more years, his image would have been cemented as a radicalist and he would not be remembered so fondly.

I'm not saying this is necessarily good or bad. He was obviously an extremely intelligent man with very interesting things to say. I don't believe I am informed and learned enough to truly have an opinion about his opinions. But I do believe that he wouldn't be unilaterally revered had he lived many more years.