Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
For me, radicalization started in 1964 when a high school English teacher assigned Dr King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Written in the form of St. Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, Dr. King’s letter to white clergymen remains my favorite of his writings. It was written on scraps of paper smuggled out of the jail. Caroline Kennedy included it in her Patriot’s Handbook because of its power and simplicity.
I have been to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis twice and was deeply and permanently moved. But, it was at the National Museum at Central High School in Little Rock that my knees buckled and I was reduced to uncontrollable sobbing tears. After seeing it, I could never use the word awesome for anything else. What those children and their parents did tops awesome.
When I first read good accounts of what people went through to gain the civil rights they should have had all along, I was shocked that this went on in my own country and even during my lifetime (though I was a little [white] kid at the time and knew very little about it). Their courage and determination really were awesome, and anyone who can’t be bothered to go and vote should be ashamed of themselves.
1JJ. Had to pick up some prescriptions this morning. My car radio, as always, was on Pacifica Radio.
They were also “re-playing” some of the words of Dr. King.
He, on this broadcast was talking about his discussion with Barry Goldwater… and the debate on whether or not… legislation was the solution to the some of the problems that people of color face in this country.
Dr. King had a lot to say to Senator Goldwater (who voted against the civil rights bill.)
I’m paraphrasing….. Dr. King: “While it is true, you cannot, by legislation, make people love me…. what you can do, is make it against the law to lynch me.”
Peace.
2In 1980 I was working in northern Mississippi and I had an accident at 2 a.m. on Easter Sunday morning. The tow truck driver who hauled me to the Ford dealer in Vicksburg had some great stories about marching with Dr. King in the Memphis garbage strike. The quote I will never forget, that he attributed to Dr. King, was this. All justifications for violence can be answered by “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
For what it’s worth, the Ford dealer in Vicksburg still had white and colored water fountains in 1980.
3How lucky I am that I live in a time of change. Humans are truly learning to treat each other better and each day the numbers grow.
4Thank you, Dr. King, for your many profound words that still resonate and for instilling your vision in so many. While we have not come nearly as far at achieving your dream as we would like, your words are the hope to continue the march, until achieve your dream is achieved.
5and whitey wingnuts leader is……..Ted Cruz……Louie Gohmert……..I just threw up in my mouth a little.
6Must comfort many modern day rethuglicans to know MLK did some of his best,most passionate writing while he was in jail where he belonged.
7Good book for kids to read: THE LIONS OF LITTLE ROCK. It’s a story of two girls, one white and one who looked white and they became best friends. it’s about how the high school was closed for a year rather than Arkansas giving in to integration. Another good one is MY MOM THE CHEERLEADER. The mom of the narrator in the story was totally against integrated schools until her boyfriend was killed by the local pro-segregation thugs. She finally understood.
8Thank you for the link to Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I’m ashamed to admit I never read it before this morning.
9I had the good luck to have the only black teacher “qualified” to enter in the white school system in 1955 in a small town in West Virginia. I had never been challenged in school until that time. I still remember her first assignment. “Describe a sunset”. I put my head down on my desk and said “I’m in trouble”. I credit her teaching and example with getting me qualified to enter the Air Force Academy, where I graduated and served a career.
10It was not until I was taking a graduate course in literature that I learned the real meaning of the word “lynching.” I had thought it meant “to frighten someone by pretending to try to hang them.” I was aghast, in front of my professor and classmates, to learn what it really was and that people came to watch like it was a concert in the bandstand on the town square. Being white shames me sometimes.
11Thank you again, JJ. I just watched interviews with the nine kids who desegregated Little Rock High School. Heartbreaking what they went through. I don’t know if I would have had that much courage.
12Since they don’t have their own day, let’s pause to remember:
13Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.
In my mind they are 3 martyred saints to be ever remembered.
I was living and going to school in Florida, where ‘integration’ was a bad word. Not to me.
14I was 17, moved from CA to Charleston, SC, in 1964. I was revolted by the horrible conditions of white vs. black water fountains and bathrooms. So insulting.
When I was in school, teachers were so dismissive of the Civil Rights movement; “Oh, it’s just the young ones. The old folks don’t want to change.” As if that was OK. When I spoke in class about how black and white kids in CA schools didn’t argue or riot (although things weren’t by any means perfect between the races) the other kids were totally astounded. It was like an alien world to them.
Things are better, but there’s a long way to go.
15I had heard about this Letter over the years but had been unable to lay my hands on a copy. I just downloaded all 12 pages. It is over 7,000 words long. And this was done on scraps of paper? And smuggled out of jail? My God! I also played a little part in the the struggle. I was part of a mixed group who were sending men to be trained on how to ride the buses, sit at lunch counters, and so forth and how to take the beatings without resisting and hopefully not getting killed. The city where I lived at the time did a demographic somersault after WWII when there was a huge wave of African Americans from the south to join the others already on site for a very long time. I went to an integrated school from the first grade onward through undergraduate school. I never had a bad time from any one of my fellow students. They were actually part of what made my life better. There were from time to time white folks from the south landing in our area and they could not believe their senses. However, when they went home from school every day unharmed and unharrassed they actually grew a little, even if very few of them stayed in the city. It was this experience that put my feet in the struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment and several other concerns. Yup, it was hard and tough but I would not have missed it for the world. My kids and grandkids are better off because of that experience.
16This is my first time as well to read Letter From A Birmingham Jail. It’s amazingly powerful. Thank you for bringing it forward today. Of course, it’s just as needed today. There are so many black men being murdered by police and who also get no justice in the courts.
17Living in constant terror of being beaten or murdered is still the reality for too many minorities in this country, despite Dr. King’s
18courageous efforts. Fear and ignorance are the root causes and
we all know too well where that’s coming from.
The first home I was ever invited to was a black family that had a Mom, Dad and two daughters. They held the bar for me for many years of what a loving REAL family looked like…my own was torn apart by addiction and “no-fault” divorce. I have been grateful for that lesson my whole life..it gave a “poor white trash” child hope that love and goodness did exist in the world. I have always been grateful that I went to a “fully” integrated school–as part of being in the school patrol (a swim and picnic lunch at the end of the year for our service) we fed the wheelchair bound students their lunches, and all of us had a mainstreamed handicapped student or two in our classes, (in my class, Kenny was deaf) with color being the least of our differences and everyone encouraged to be the best they could be. A gift that was public school in the 50’s…not all of them, but my financially poor but human rich one taught me a great deal about true values.
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