|
CounterPunch
January
18 / 19, 2003
Born Again
Can
King's Legacy Be Reclaimed from Its Abusers?
By KEVIN ALEXANDER
GRAY
Every year this time people pull out Martin Luther
King's "I have a dream" or "mountaintop"
speeches with corresponding video footage. Generally speaking,
King is presented at two times in his life, at the beginning
and end of his career and life. Rarely is there a discussion
or education on his beliefs.
King's image is misused by just about
everybody. So much so there needs to be a rescue operation to
save his legacy and the civil rights agenda. Politicians throw
King or "civil rights" in a sentence and they're done.
In the aftermath of the Trent Lott confession, white politicians
Republican and Democratic--have fallen all over themselves
to say they are for "civil rights." Presidential candidate
and North Carolina Senator John Edwards said he was for "civil
rights" which could mean either 'I like black people' or
'I want black votes.'
Whites are not alone in the misuse. Many
blacks think King's image or a King-like speech substitutes for
substance. Here in South Carolina in the past campaign year,
the Democrats mailed out flyers with a picture of King on one
side and it's two statewide black candidates on the other. Under
the King picture were the words "Someone we can trust."
Steve Benjamin, the candidate for state Attorney General (one
of the men pictured on the King mailer) ran as a pro-gun, pro-death
penalty, tough on crime conservative. He said he would further
limit paroles in a state where the adult prison population is
65% black and the youth population is 85% black. He traveled
to Charleston on Labor Day to speak to workers but refused to
support the right of garbage workers to bargain collectively.
How's that for irony given that King died while organizing garbage
workers?
As for the hip-hop generation, they are
often chided for being irreverent of King and unfeeling towards
the civil rights struggle as well as what civil rights means.
Not being one for idolatry, I am not upset with Cedric the Entertainer's
jibs in the movie Barbershop nor did I agree with the calls to
have the Jesse Jackson, Rosa Parks and King comments cut from
the movie. Still, as I watched the movie and heard the King quip
I thought, Robert Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI spent
thousands of dollars and man hours to destroy this man
even suggesting he kill himself over his infidelity. So, is the
hip-hop generation movie promoting the government's and haters'
line or just "flippin the script?"
Some argue that King supporters accept
him flaws and all, which was the point of the controversial Barbershop
scene. King was not perfect but he lead a great movement. I would
like to believe that blacks are more forgiving than most. Still,
we can't expect a movie whose primary purpose is to entertain--to
educate.
Politicians and movies aside, what King
was trying to accomplish still needs doing. In "Where do
we go from here" King said "the movement must address
itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American
society " or, in preacher terms, "America must be born
again!" His 1967 speech is clear as to where we are today
and why. He reminds us "the problem of racism, the problem
of economic exploitation and the problem of war are all tied
together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated."
Clearly, the goal of the human and civil
rights movement remains far undone. The sad reality is that at
this point there is no movement and no organization at the grassroots
level to make a movement happen. That's not to say a movement
isn't on the horizon but it's going to take building. And in
both movements and wars--old people send young people do most
of the marching, fighting and dying. And the hip-hoppers of color
will die in George Bush's war in greater numbers than most. So,
building a peace movement is in their interest. It's a matter
of life or death, freedom or imprisonment, ignorance or transformation
and enlightment.
As for where King might be on war with
Iraq -- in 1968, King entertained running as an independent candidate
for president with Dr. Benjamin Spock as Vice-president to oppose
the Vietnam War. King supported peace. He was against killing.
So maybe amidst the misuse and cynicism there is room for optimism
as opposition to war is high in the black community. In the 2002
National Opinion Poll of African Americans conducted by David
Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies,
less that 19 percent of blacks supported going to war with Iraq.
The poll highlights the economy and employment as the main concerns
of blacks.
As was King's mission we must organize
the just and peaceful society. Those seeking peace should oppose
all other forms of state-sponsored killing to include the death
penalty.
Environmentalism is a peace option. It
means being against the production of nuclear bomb material at
the Savannah River Plant here in South Carolina.
A peace and justice agenda involves transforming
a society where one in three black men are under some type of
criminal justice supervision. Being for peace means being against
the "war on drugs." That is unless we want that ratio
to be 4 out of 4?
When you are for peace you reject the
exploitation of workers and the corporate-manufactured (and most
often racist) animosities between them. It means the rejection
of unjust social, political and economic conditions that lead
to war, death, hurt or exploitation.
So, where do we go from here? First,
the task to restructure must be fought at every level but most
importantly at the grassroots level using a variety of tactics
and methods. We can't all just go off to a big march in Washington
or a march once a year on King's birthday and that's it. From
here on out we have to muster the resources to run and support
candidates with a human rights agenda. We have to do local teach-ins,
start freedom schools and create structures to challenge government,
status quo politics and inhumane policies. It means thinking
differently about things and helping others to do the same. It
means changing values. Fundamentally, restructuring means dismantling
white privilege and supremacy.
Now, more than ever, we must educate
the public not just about King, but what he believed in and what
we all claim to believe in when we raise him name up. We must
organize and make change happen. We live in dangerous times.
If we don't mobilize, our children's lives, our lives and future
is in peril. We must act.
Kevin Gray
is a CounterPunch contributer and civil rights organizer who
resides in Columbia, South Carolina. He can be reached at: kagamba@bellsouth.net
Yesterday's
Features
rancis A. Boyle
Draft
Impeachment Resolution Against George W. Bush
Yigal Bronner
Conscientious
Objectors Abused by the IDF
Jason Leopold
When
Bush First Vowed to "Take Out" Saddam
CounterPunch Wire
Gov.
Ryan Nominated for Nobel Prize
JoAnn Wypijewski
Workers
Against War
Carl Estabrook
Roe
30 Years Later
Abortion and the Left
Bernard Weiner
Inside Saddam's War Diary
Hot Damn! It's Showtime!
Maria Tomchick
A
Tax Cut That Would Sink the Economy
William Hughes
Give Me That Old Time Republic
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|