Happy MLK Day!

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
A while back I was listening to an NPR report on a teacher that took his mixed race class to the mall in Washington DC. He got special permission to bring a boom box to the top of the washington monument. He tried to set the seen of the great civil rights march and then played Dr Kings "Free at Last" speech. The reaction of the kids was interesting. Kind of a "Oh no this again? How many times do we have to hear this?"



One of my favorite parts of the Declaration of Independence is the line We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights



It was such and in your face statement to the king of England. They were saying, we are telling you something that we don't have to prove to you because it's "self-evident". Everyone is one the same footing wrt the law because we are "created equal". We have these rights that cannot be taken way because they are "unalienable Rights". It was a big eff you!





MLK used this in his speech on the mall. In a sense we have come to our Nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.



This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed to the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.




But then he extended it with his dream for our country. And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement 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 spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."



I still wonder how much better our country would be had God given us a little more time with him.



Have a great MLK day and take some time to reflect one where we started and where we're going. Remember that MLK had a dream for you.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    i'm speechless, great post scott.



    2 years ago we visited the lincoln memorial and that's all i could think about, that this was the spot that Dr. King gave that speech, threats against his life, the kennedy's begging him not to......man what a moment in time.
  • Reply 2 of 26
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    Not only do we need to remember his message of hope... but how we failed to protect him, to Hoover's FBI he was an enemy of the state.



    We should never let up on the injustices in society... we can always be better.
  • Reply 3 of 26
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chu_bakka

    we can always be better.



    I like that



    Fellows
  • Reply 4 of 26
    709709 Posts: 2,016member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Scott

    ...Remember that MLK had a dream for you.



    Scott, you made my night. Thanks.
  • Reply 5 of 26
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    "And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement 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 spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."



    What extrodinary words...



    I love the man for his passion and his love..



    Thank you Scott for the thread



    Fellowship
  • Reply 6 of 26
    Powerful post Scott!
  • Reply 7 of 26
    drewpropsdrewprops Posts: 2,321member
    We've come so far....so far yet to go!



    If you're ever in ATL drop by and visit the MLK Center and Sweet Auburn.
  • Reply 8 of 26
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    What's most amazing to me about that speech is that, apparently, the second half of it (ALL of the "I have a dream" stuff) is completely ad lib.
  • Reply 9 of 26
    Excellent post.
  • Reply 10 of 26
    chu_bakkachu_bakka Posts: 1,793member
    Very far to go... a great article on the struggle of desegregating schools.



    http://nytimes.com/2004/01/18/edlife...l?pagewanted=1



    The Supreme Struggle

    By ADAM COHEN

    Published: January 18, 2004



    On May 17, 1954, the day the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education, the N.A.A.C.P. held a news conference to unveil an ambitious new agenda. With segregated schools now unconstitutional, the intention was to move on directly to housing segregation and employment discrimination. Thurgood Marshall, the N.A.A.C.P.'s lead lawyer, admitted there was still work to be done implementing Brown, but he was sure it wouldn't take long. School segregation would be eliminated nationwide, he told reporters, within five years.



    It hasn't worked out that way...



    cont.
  • Reply 11 of 26
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    Scott, I give your post 5 stars!!!



    Seriously though, wow. And you all have had such great things to say too. Keep on fighting, the way MLK would have done. We are so close to a world of piece, but so far away. MLK had the power to change the world, and he did. We all posses that power, now go and use it!
  • Reply 12 of 26
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    We got the north firing on all 8 cylinders, now lets work on the south



    I am just curious how many black members there are on this board I wonder.



    Have a great day everyone...well the remaining 2 hours of it anyways.
  • Reply 13 of 26
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ast3r3x

    We got the north firing on all 8 cylinders, now lets work on the south



    What does this mean?



    BTW, I highly recommend that everyone read King's speech, "Beyond Vietnam." It's very late in his career (he was assassinated a year to the day after delivering it), and comes after he had come to see the civil rights issues in this country less optimistically.



    Here's the money quote: "My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. 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."



    Read the whole speech here.



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 14 of 26
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    Taken from the link midwinter provided:



    "Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition." - MLK



    May we strive to embody this..



    Fellows
  • Reply 15 of 26
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by midwinter

    What does this mean?





    Mostly joking, but as a whole I feel there is more racism in the south than the north. I'm not saying you are all racist, but % wise I believe the south is higher then the north. But no reason to split our country up...it's all one thing





    But as for those westerners
  • Reply 16 of 26
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    This thread reminded me that I'll be working on Monday. Cancer don't cure itself.
  • Reply 17 of 26
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ast3r3x

    Mostly joking, but as a whole I feel there is more racism in the south than the north. I'm not saying you are all racist, but % wise I believe the south is higher then the north. But no reason to split our country up...it's all one thing





    But as for those westerners




    As Randy Newman has rightly pointed out, you might want to take a good look around you before you go saying things like that:



    "Yes he's free to be put in a cage

    In Harlem in New York City

    And he's free to be put in a cage in the South-Side of Chicago, the West-Side

    And he's free to be put in a cage in Hough in Cleveland

    And he's free to be put in a cage in East St. Louis

    And he's free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco

    And he's free to be put in a cage in Roxbury in Boston

    They're gatherin' 'em up from miles around"



    --Randy Newman, "Rednecks"
  • Reply 18 of 26
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    I like Ben Harper myself.
  • Reply 19 of 26
    gilschgilsch Posts: 1,995member
    Nice Scott. Beautiful words from MLK. Thanks for starting the thread. I'm gonna go listen to U2's The Unforgettable Fire right now.



    Thank you for that awesome quote Fellowship (via Midwinter).

    "Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition." - MLK



    Magical words. A lot of people in the current admin should try to understand them.
  • Reply 20 of 26
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gilsch

    Nice Scott. Beautiful words from MLK. Thanks for starting the thread. I'm gonna go listen to U2's The Unforgettable Fire right now.



    That's my plan for tomorrow.
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