Remembering Dr. King, 40 Years Later
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I have posted here some links which may be of interest: A Newsweek interview with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, and and a collection of articles, speeches and photographs from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, for those desiring more historical background.
In talking with my mother last evening, she told me that she recalls exactly where she was and what she was doing on the day Dr. King was assassinated. The same is true for her when President Kennedy was assassinated. I suppose events such as the assassination of a prominent leader freezes for all eternity the moment in which such events occur; one never forgets.
Even though we have not yet achieved Dr. King’s dream, nationally or internationally, things are much better for many Black Americans, to which my mother and father can attest. Having grown up in the segregated South, the world was a very different and very dangerous place for Black Americans during the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
I fear, however, that as events like the assassination of Dr. King and the March on Washington become more remote, more distant, and more removed from our post-modern society, the less people under the age of 40 know about and think about such things. Dr. King was so much more than his “I Have A Dream” speech, and his legacy transcends the month of January. He spoke well beyond his short life, and deconstructed better than anyone has before or since the intersectionality of race and socioeconomics, here in the United States and abroad. Dr. King became a real threat when he spoke out against the Vietnam War, poverty, the depletion of natural resources and imperialism; it jeopardized the Old World Order. Advocating for the rights of Black Americans was just the beginning.
I hope you will take this opportunity to educate yourselves re: the aforementioned, and remember Dr. King today in a proactive way.
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Thinking about MLK JR. « The Proletarian - April 5, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Thank you for this.
Actually thank you for your work here.
It’s good to hear your voice.
I gain from it every time I read here.
And I’ll be over catching up on Spring Break.
When I was eight Dr. King was very real for me.
He managed to inspire my entire life. In my little group of inspiring humans he sits or stands speaking and organizing me into a better self…… I had “connected” as a kid from parents, also via watching a lot of TV on a tiny black and white that was a window for me, to my outside world. In that childhood going over to Virginia to where my Uncle Fletcher Flagg worked running a company that laid all the underground cabling-massive work he did-I saw the dichotomous ways of southern heirachies based on skin color in his workers who did like him, even in access to language, power. I saw folks nod and bend and yes sir my uncle…vestigages of other days. It was so unlike what should be, you just can’t understand these things not seeing the south. I saw what we might not wish to say now. It was like going into a sociological study as a babe looking. I used to ask, “Why is that grown man defferring like that?” Once my father answered me, “Because men here are stupid and waste time and lives with power over learning.” That was my Dad talking to me at 8. And I think about my life’s seeing….now. What would I see now?
I told my parents King was dead the same way I told my parents about JFK. I knew the world shifted. I knew that a prophet was killed.
I , myself, believe in Dr. King as the prophet for our age. He holds for me that status, there are very few, we need to understand them as they do arrive.
And the work remains, though I grant that there has been made an awareness, some things can be said aloud, some things are seen. But as I say repeatedly when I worked in South Central LA twenty years ago I realized a great thing existed I did not know before, the difference in experience of life of a child born there with my life in Morgantown, West Virginia kept me…reeling with understandings. It was a life there of utter hardships we really can as a group help, focus on, improve. A war on poverty has yet to be won. One of the saddest days was watching RFK tell his audience in that famous speech the news of this killing and once again, once again call a people to treat others from a higher place, to quiet the desire to act in rage. I watched with 8 year old eyes but…my belief is that if an 8 year old can understand the core issues then adults surely can.
I could not do a great job on this day writing, it touches grief for me , grief disables me. It pulls me from positive to a sense of defeat. But i wrote a poem, linked to articles.
I really appreciate these links here. My school silent on this day with students. At my core I think what happened through the last few years in schools was the silencing of these issues as an “agenda” this worries me, this speaks to me about how we prepare children to meet the future. Without knowledge of history we are doomed to repeat it.
we are doomed to unfairness and the denial of truths that must be faced.
Hope you are going well, Sarah Puglisi
Sarah - April 6, 2008 at 2:11 pm
This is a great blog post on exactly that issue, re: the softening of King’s true (and much more powerful) legacy.
Neal - April 8, 2008 at 9:48 am