The Martin Luther King Thread

(Bam will live to be 90 on the Supreme Court, bcz the good die young)

Isn't it cute when Morbs tries to drag radical visionaries down to his level?

if hilter were alive today he would support obama

I am basing this off a hitler personality model that I have constructed w/ a huge set of hitler data

he would love obama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbABaBFfo9k

I believe all people are nice, even thought they get mad sometimes. My personal hero is someone who never got mad, who always turned the other cheek: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

just seems sort of crass to imply what a dead person would do or think, instead of saying that you found them inspirational and this is what /you/ think, partially due to their influence

last I checked MLK Jr. had a daughter who's using her name to advocate against rights for gay people

kids are the worst.

itt white people speculate on the potential futures of america's civil rights greats

As they do.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/601251_10151623235194056_1126994918_n.jpg

via Pee-Wee Herman, of course

i remember my HS history teacher telling us he thought MLK would've eventually run for president had he lived. i think the odds of that were pretty low but tbh i wish i lived in the parallel universe where it happened.

US Air Force:

"Dr. King would be proud to see our Global Strike team - comprised of Airmen, civilians and contractors from every race, creed, background and religion - standing side-by-side ensuring the most powerful weapons in the US arsenal remain the credible bedrock of our national defense. . . Our team must overlook our differences to ensure perfection as we maintain and operate our weapon systems. . . Maintaining our commitment to our Global Strike team, our families and our nation is a fitting tribute to Dr. King as we celebrate his legacy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/22/martin-luther-king-military-weapons

went to a screening of 'king: a filmed record' tonight. easily one of the best documentaries i've ever seen -- a fucking incredible experience.

really, like, if you're a human being, you gotta see this.

I have seen it. Coulda done w/out the actor readings, though.

Would we be calling MLK a sellout by now, had he not been killed?

― mh, Monday, January 21, 2013 11:11 AM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not if he was marching against Bam today, no

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Monday, January 21, 2013 11:12 AM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what are the chances that you think that would happen morbs

― iatee, Monday, January 21, 2013 11:12 AM

maybe not good; he'd be in Guantanamo

Poor hypothetical 84-year-old political prisoner.

Anyone seen the documentary Eyes on the Prize? Made by PBS in 1987 when most of the participants were alive.

Yeah, I remember that being pretty great. Wasn't someone supposed to do Parting the Waters, or did that happen already?

of course i saw eyes on the prize! i'd like to see it again though, that was a long time ago. it's REALLY weird to think that more time has passed since that documentary was aired than had passed between it and the events it was talking about.

It works in part because it's a 6-hour series (and only covers up to '65).

I've checked out the first two parts. An excellent companion to the Taylor Branch books.

There's an Eyes On The Prize II that goes to the 1970s (I think). Long unavailable, though. First aired in 1988.

agreed about the actor readings -- pretty dated and kinda embarrassing.

I'd like to see all the footage of King speaking and marching that is extant. Filmed Record has that angry white Chicago mob in it, right?

Speaking of actors, Variety piece on the showbiz contingent at the March.

The 50 or so actors and performers who attended — Sammy Davis Jr., Marlon Brando, Lena Horne, James Garner, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll to name a few — were “partly responsible for bringing a relaxed and peaceful ‘county fair’ mood to the huge demonstration,” as Variety’s Mike Mosettig, then just 21 years old, wrote. But Mosettig, now a producer for PBS, also noted that Harry Belafonte, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, read a statement from the show biz that warned of “artistic sterility” if all Americans aren’t given freedom and discrimination didn’t come to an end. Without that, Belafonte read, “growth of the artist is seriously menaced.”

...Garner, in his autobiography, said that the FBI called each celebrity one by one the night before, warning them to stay away, “saying they couldn’t guarantee our safety.”

There also was disagreement among the show biz contingent on exactly what they should do and say once they got there. Before they left Los Angeles on a chartered plane, Garner wrote, then Screen Actors Guild president Heston presided over a planning meeting where Brando held up a cattle prod that had been used against demonstrators in Gadsden, Alabama.

“Marlon wanted us to chain ourselves to the Lincoln Memorial,” Garner wrote. “Chuck didn’t like that. He said we should play by the rules and threatened to bail out of the march if we did any ‘militant’ stuff. Marlon shut up and we did it Chuck’s way.”...

Josephine Baker “disavowed for one day her pledge never to return to the U.S. and flew in from Paris,” Variety reported. Wearing a blue uniform of the free French, she praised the racially mixed crowd for being “together as salt and pepper just as you should be. You are a unified people at last.” Dick Gregory quipped to the estimated 200,000 gathered, “The last time I saw this many of us, Bull Connor was doing all the talking.”

http://variety.com/2013/voices/columns/when-marlon-brando-marched-with-charlton-heston-how-variety-covered-the-march-on-washington-1200589376/

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/04/06/heston_brando_gallery__589x400.jpg

Garner, in his autobiography, said that the FBI called each celebrity one by one the night before, warning them to stay away, “saying they couldn’t guarantee our safety.”

lolololololol

Filmed Record has that angry white Chicago mob in it, right?

yes -- one of the most chilling things i've ever seen. there's a clip from MLK saying it's worse than anything he encountered in the south.

nippers like me should watch this meet the press clip to have it brought home just how condescendingly concern-trolling the enlightened yankees were re: MLK; every single question (that isn't about noted COMMIE! bayard rustin) is about how Well Don't You Think There's Likely To Be A Lot Of Violence? Don't You Think You're Pushing Too Hard? Shouldn't You Allow The Country Time To Get Used To The Advances We've Already Made?

I wonder if they called James Baldwin... xxp

Haven't watched it yet but there's a CBS roundtable at the end of the Variety page.

Liberals this week have been particularly good at noting the bad faith and cowardice of their white predecessors.

Chris Hayes a few days ago too

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/a-colored-mans-constitution/?_r=1&utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffera00f4&utm_medium=twitter&

wasn't sure what thread to put this in, but since there have been posts itt recently due to the march's 50th anniversary, this'll do. a (former?) slave in 1863 writes an 8-page re-interpretation of the constitution

in his memoir Heston, who called his appearance at the March the highlight of his life, hesitated before appearing with a "far left" Negro writer like James Baldwin, a man who once titled a book The Fire Next Time.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/constitution.pdf

this is the full pdf btw

I'm sure if Dr. King were around today he'd have plenty of work to do : I still see institutional racism even in self-styled "integrated" environments. In health care and educational institutions, whites are over-represented at the top and while they may pay lip service to the Civil Rights Movement, they simply don't have to devote as much of their time to it. There is no excuse for the sub-standard services black communities get.

Also it would have been quite something to see Dr. King talk about The African-American Civil Rights Movement across the globe!

Not gonna be hearing any US pols quoting this.

There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. Call it what you may, call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God's children.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/obery-m-hendricks-jr-phd/the-uncompromising-anti-capitalism-of-martin-luther-king-jr_b_4629609.html

Or this stuff (which is excellent reading and gives you a strong sense of what the late sixties were like):

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/

At the same time, those sentiments were becoming mainstream during Vietnam (in some parts of the country). Now this kind of stuff is taboo again.

http://vimeo.com/11154217

"There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America?' And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the oil?' You begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the iron ore?' You begin to ask the question, 'Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that's two-thirds water?' These are words that must be said."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7pLYOZCUAIFzyw.jpg

ugh fuck the south

Awesome Taylor Branch interview covering MLK's enthusiastic nonviolence:

And as a result there are a number of things people misunderstand about King and nonviolence. For one thing it’s not the same as Mahatma Gandhi’s “passive resistance.”

“King had a little trouble with the Gandhians” and their incessant fasting, says Branch, who decided to edit out several hundred pages of his manuscript dealing with the Gandhians. “He was over there in India and he said for them the test of your commitment was whether you could fast. He used to joke, ‘Gandhi obviously never tasted barbecue.’”

Passive resistance, Branch points out, was easier in a country where 95 percent of the people were your natural supporters, as in India, versus America, where you’re only 10 percent—and a good portion of the rest were actively hostile. Instead King’s nonviolence depended on being active, using demonstrations, direct actions, to “amplify the message” of the protest they were making, even if it meant sacrificing their own lives and limbs to do it.

link?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-weve-forgotten-about-martin-luther-king-devotion-nonviolence-180953639/?all&no-ist

oops. Thanks.

OMG Robert E. Lee. Let's celebrate treason!

I did not know Stevie Wonder had a hand in this:

https://medium.com/cuepoint/how-stevie-wonder-helped-create-martin-luther-king-day-807451a78664

King otm. A great man. The world needs more like him.

weird and uncanny that a holiday celebrating maybe the best american ever coincides with a holiday celebrating one of the worst

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/what-santa-clausifying-dr_b_809951.html

OMG Robert E. Lee. Let's celebrate treason!

― SCOTTISH PEOPLE ONLY (I M Losted), Monday, January 19, 2015 11:35 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, they do that down there. always have...