Tweet
Today in the United States, we are celebrating Martin Luther King Day as a national holiday. This holiday is observed on the third Monday of January and honors the slain civil rights hero. It was signed into law on November 2, 1983 by President Reagan and was first observed on January 20, 1986.
I was born and raised in Kentucky. To be honest, when the march on Washington came about in 1963, I have no memories of it at all. I was most likely spending that summer day at the local public swimming pool (although in fact, we may have already been back in school on that day). I was somewhat aware of the civil rights movement and have memories of being at the local county courthouse in my hometown, going to get a drink of water at a fountain and being stopped and sent to another water fountain a little further away. It did not register then but I understand now that it was the "colored" fountain I had first approached.
Fortunately, my hometown had managed to peacefully integrate the schools. Realistically, there was probably more angst with the folks from Berry having to go to school with the folks from Oddville, Buena Vista, Sunrise and the other county schools (and vice versa) than there was about the kids from Banneker joining us.
My freshman year at Western Kentucky University, all freshman had to attend a weekly "orientation class" where we would get together with the assigned instructor and discuss the challenges we were facing as students in 1970. One week, we entered and the instructor had set up a tape deck at his desk. We settled into our seats and quieted down. He said nothing, just started the tape and walked out. It was a recording of the "I Have a Dream" speech. To that instructor whose name is escaping me right now, I thank you for giving us so much to think about.
If you have never actually listened to this speech, please do so. As you do, try to open your heart and head both to the fact that we are really in this together. If you have heard it previously, try to remember your feelings when you first heard it. Thank you.
59 Comments
Thanks dakine, recd and watching now.
Thanks Jason.
I just wanted to remind folks of where we’ve come from and hoping to settle some of the angst (I do love that word) over where we are headed. As humans, we are not and cannot be on a perfect path in a perfect world but occasionally we have people such as Dr King come along to remind us of our better selves.
Beautiful.
thanks Dakine! like many of our generation, I was simply transfixed by that voice and the ideas it expressed. my union father and union grandfather watching a clip on Huntley-Brinkley and remarking to one another that Labor did right in aligning itself with this young preacher fella and the march :D
p.s. played the entire speech for my then teenagers about 10 years ago – all three stunned that there was anyone like him in their country’s history
Thanks to MLK and the other civil rights marchers, we’re all freer to choose the people we have as friends and family. We can choose to hire people from any ethnic group if we’re employers. We can do those things, and not see crosses burned on our lawns, or worse.
That’s no small thing. Maybe it’s not what ethnic minorities gained, but it’s worth celebrating.
Thanks, dakine01.
We were once a land where giants walked. At least, it seems that way now.
And some of those giants we knew were giants, even at the time.
Others, we have to wait a while to recognize their stature, but Dr King is one that most recognized at the time.
(I said most, not all) :})
Yanno, I was inspired during the primaries, because in case people forgot, Obama gave his race speech 40 years to the day of the MLK speech.
I was quite inspired, and forgive the voice, but sang this in hope
I still believe, and I’ll still labor and work. But I had no idea 2 years ago that it’d STILL be this hard, maybe even harder now, for health and economic equality for all.
“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes)
I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes)
I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)
I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that’s all I want to say.”
Excerpt from “The Drum Major Instinct” sermon, Martin Luther King, Jr.
February 1968
As has been mentioned many times, it is a marathon, not a sprint. At the same time though, I can look back at the things that have happened in my own life and the changes that have been made on the positive side. We do need to stop and think about the changes in the last 50 years and the progress made.
We still have a long way to go but we sure have come a long way down that thousand mile journey.
Thanks, dakine. After opening one’s heart one should close one’s eyes and also listen to:
Beyond Viet Nam
I’ve Been to the Mountaintop
They are as relevant today as when given.
Yeah, “I’ve been to the mountaintop” is especially one of my favorites.
I think it may be one of those deals where truth speaks to our hearts and minds no matter where or when in history the truth was spoken.
I was at Chet Huntley’s wedding to Tippy Stringer, a local teebee “weather girl,” as they were known. My dad’s band played the reception. She also had tried singing with some of the bands in town, including my dad’s. Horrible. Had breath that would chase a buzzard off a 3 day old carcass.
The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV
The Martin Luther King You Don’t See on TV Media Beat (1/4/95) … From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was “on the wrong side …
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2269 – Cached – Similar
American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence …Martin Luther King, Jr. Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence. Delivered 4 April 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in …
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm – Cached
NOTE: I wish the efforts of Martin Luther King-immediately following the civil rights marches, when King began speaking out against the Vietnam War and the growing influence of the military industrial complex-were equally well publicized.
The speech (in the links above) certainly resonates with what is going on in the world today.
Incidentally, he was assassinated one year to the day after making this speech at Riverside Church.
Yep. I copied them onto CDs long time ago. Listened to them all today while I was closing out 09 files at work. Still powerful.
I didn’t say I was stopping! I’m a believer and a doer. And a celebrater!
I am saying there could be a little more support in equality, of all stripes, racial, economic, health and marriage from certain quarters of leadership.
*shrugs*
The 60s were awesome.
Thanks dakine.
I know it’s a struggle and we would be better served if some of our nominal leaders did actually lead. There’s an old cartoon or joke around about how the politician is running after the crowd saying, “I’m their leader” or something like that.
We just need the politicians to catch up with the rest of us.
Yeah, and I actually do remember a lot of the sixties (since I was not old enough to drink legally in those days and hadn’t quite discovered all the other psycho-active substances for a few years)
Omayn! I’m out in front with ya baby!
Last week I order a DVD called “We Shall Overcome” for my 14 year old granddaughter. It’s Dr. King’s speeches and I want her to know about him. I hope that Obama can take inspiration from this day.
but wasn’t MLK too much of a ‘purist’ for you?
I mean, why couldn’t he see that much of what he so stirringly strove for was simply ‘not politically possible?’
you like to bash ‘purists’ some days, but then laud those whose
ponder whether there are some truths about your beloved Donkey Party that you and your co-religionists simply refuse to hear – MLK Day can be a day for deep and challenging thinking.
Never did that. Alcohol is my mood alterer of choice.
I graduated from HS in 1962. Unlike the stereotype, HS was the only good schooling I ever experienced. Loved my classmates. (Planning for the 50th in 2 year. A BIG public school filled with the wonderful motley mix of everybody). College I hated, but that’s another story.
Didn’t do any protesting but was quietly very excited about all the change for the better going on around me. Kinda like the mirror image of the last decade.
Who is the “you” you refer to in your comment?
Obviously you and I disagree on a number of things.
But I don’t recall hearing any discussions from Dr King on destroying the Democratic Party in hopes it would lead to some third party that would rush in from the left wing and save the Republic from the Republicans.
He actually did work within the system. Yes, he was killed for doing so but that is not on his legacy of working within.
Haven’t you heard? MLK was flawed! He was right on a lot of things and wrong on others, which I will not posit evidence for on this day of celebration in his name.
That’s right.
You can have a day of celebration in your name and not be pure and angelic. And you can be celebrated. Because you did mostly the right thing and moved the cause along mightily.
Day and Night lives on each side of the Terminator, with a bunch of twilight to boot.
I was fortunate enough to have good teachers at all levels from grade school all the way through college. Sometimes I didn’t actually appreciate them when I was a student. Especially when I had one that encouraged thought AND didn’t say the thoughts were necessarily wrong as long as I could justify the opinion expressed, then I was in good shape.
The trouble I had was when I’d be told to say what I thought someone or something meant and then be told that my thoughts were wrong. Don’t ask my opinion then tell me my opinion is wrong, (but that’s a whole other kvetch and complaint for another time)
Thanks for this, dakine. If we all just tried as Dr. King did, we might make some progress.
I keep waiting for somebody to find an old oil lamp on the beach, rub it three times and this Magickal Third Party will appear in a cloud of pixie dust and we’ll all be saved.
we have so much to talk about!
the ‘purity’ issue, as it relates to heroes like King, is full of complexity/
but, honoring your evenhanded response, and honoring the spirit of the day, I say thanks for a fine post, it is great to listen to those speeches.
we need more like MLK, that is for sure.
Thanks dakine. Dr. King was so much within the rhetorical tradition of the Southern church, black and white, that the only time I heard him speak it came off as very calm and commonplace. It is in retrospect that I sense the power of the words, a power that was lacking in most Southern preachers.
I saw the consequences of his work before I ever knew he existed. In 1958, I was in the 7th grade and took the city bus to school in a small city in South Carolina. And painted in black letters at the front of the bus was the sign, “White patrons seat from front. Colored patrons seat from rear.” One day I got on the bus and that sign had been painted out, very sloppily, with white paint. And the adults on the bus were talking about it; I can’t remember what their tone was but it seemed it was a bit of a surprise if not a shock–maybe disorientation is a better word.
Looking back on it. That was the day that all Southerners began to be free. Unfortunately, there is still a rump group who want to escape that freedom. So weak is this group that they have to be held in being by radio and teevee talk shows. It was something stunning how fast the South changed — until 1980. And how quickly it snapped back when the fear of social stigma was gone. But I too have been to the mountaintop and have seen the promised land. In the Carolinas and Atlanta and southwest Georgia. It was glorious before it got snatched away. We in the South have come so far; we will get there, some day.
Not only flawed but knew he was flawed and admitted publicly his personal struggles with them. Hell of a lot more than I can say for a lot of people. A lot.
I had uninspiring teachers all the way thru, except for Mrs. Neuschal who taught “humanities” and English lit. We all loved her. Emails when she died, close to 90 iirc, quite a number of years ago. I’m sorry I didn’t try to communicate with her to tell her what a difference she made.
Nope, it was my classmates who made my education, not the teachers. I went to a snooty women’s college, and I had nothing in common with the other girls. (I finally figured out, many years later, that our commonality was workaholism [I'm now completely cured of that], not the characteristic that creates bonds.)
Juan Cole cited this MLK speech:
I’m maladjusted…! ;-)
Yeah. Kind of like the old tech joke where the engineer is working on the detailed algorhythm/equation and the other engineer points to the “then a miracle occurs” and says “This step needs a little further explanation don’t you think?”
No one can giv a path to having that third party miracle occur.
watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: If Wishes Were Ponies, Then Bushies Would Ride
‘Zactamundo!
We’re HUMANS! We have flaws. There is no perfection for us, no purity, no angelic status, no certain footing.
This doesn’t mean that we can’t do a lot of right things, and do them well, in spite of our flaws. It truly is the content of our character that counts.
Damn, I’m maladjusted too.
Well, the experiences with classmates and the discovery of things outside of the classroom were def a strong part of the education process. Even the experimenting with the psycho-active substances.
But I was fortunate in having a few professors that pushed me to think. One was my US History professor. Because it was entry level courses, he would hit our grades for non-attendance but if we attended class, then it opened our eyes. As an example, he gave credit if we got within ten years either side of the date of an occurrence in history but we got the real credit if we explained Why something happened.
He was a definite improvement over the football coach history teacher from high school days.
What.A.Nice.Post.
Rec’d.
Just turned on MSNBC (i dont KNOW why) and caught the end of a commercial:
MLK’s face all over the screen, the caption at the bottomn said “Boeing, build the dream”.
nice, eh? Boeing is building “dreams” now. OH WAIT! they are, “the dreamliner” a replacement for the 747. And Dr Martin Luther Kings,”dream” has been co opted to sell it. i guess it was just a funny little pun then. how cute.
Not lookin’ for perfection, purity, or angelic status. Lookin’ for somebody who’s been around the block a time or two or three, somebody I can trust to watch my back.
Gracias!
Friends help you move. Good friends help you move bodies…
LOL Truth
Well, aren’t I?
edit: that was meant @ yer 42
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Dakine01 and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
I am an original member of the “baby boom” generation. When I was in the seventh grade I was comin’ home from a conference music festival of high schools in southern Minnesota (I played in the high school orchestra as a 7th grader) and while waitin for my mother to pick me up from the high school, I sneaked into the back of the HUGE auditorium and listened in the black-dark of the last row to a very black man speak as I imagined Abe Lincoln would have spoken to a packed audience of very white and very conservative Minnesotans. Now, I grew up in an English teacher’s house, an English teacher who was a socialist and a disabled WWII vet and who raised all of us kids to know that that part of America that was south of the Mason Dixon Line was neither safe nor part of our democracy. And most of those in that audience shared that understanding of the South…indeed most of those in that audience KNEW that there was no law or democracy in the South.
Well, I was so mesmerized by the Black man’s voice, the gentle lapping of his words on the stone hard foreheads in that audience and the excitement of hearing the truth of race politics spoken outside of the warm safety of my father’s house that my mother had to come in and find me after half an hour of waitin for me in the parkin lot. When I got home the old man was ready ta take me down for makin Mom wait until he heard who I was listenin’ to and for the next hour my father explained that I had witnessed history and had just seen ignorance and the fear-generated hate of ignorance confront the truth of our own peculiar and evil history. My old man explained that even though the people in the audience listened , understood and greeted the speaker with a standing ovation, vitually everyone in the room that night knew the truth but would not lift a finger to confront the evil of apartheid in our own country.
I am reminded today of the experience of that evening, and I am reminded that virtually all of us know the evil criminality of the corporate wars in the Middle East,that virtually all of us know of the organized criminality of Wall Street and the oil oligarchy and that virtually all of us know of the reality of murderous bigotry that passes for politics in our country…but none of us has the balls to confront it because we are too afraid.
So thanks Citizen Dakine01, thank you for reminding me that we do have heroes in our history who have had the courage of the truth but like the heroes left behind in our wars of empire, they died tryin ta get us up out of our fear.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THIS WAR IS ALL WE HAVE LEFT OF THEM!!!
I’m at 42. If it’s for me I don’t understand the question. *g* Aren’t you what?
Wow.
wow. good post Cujo. thx
Thanks ,I haven’t seen that in it’s entirety since high school
I’ve Been To The Mountaintop
you probably know this, but if others don’t – Dr King got out of a sickbed to deliver that speech. It was to be an organizers meeting in a church that held 11,000. Dr King, in and out of fever induced delirum had followed his inner circle’s advice and had remained behind to recuperate. Ralph Abernathy, worried that a disappointed crowd could turn in to a mob, urged Dr King to put in an appearance – which resulted in that historical moment.
how can one hear those words, that moment and not believe in grace ?
Expect Larue in about 2 minutes….
Bless Dr. King, his work and his words.
Thanks for the post DaKine . . .
I was somewhat aware of the civil rights movement and have memories of being at the local county courthouse in my hometown, going to get a drink of water at a fountain and being stopped and sent to another water fountain a little further away. It did not register then but I understand now that it was the “colored” fountain I had first approached.
Sorry for your brain damage.
Beg pardon?
What about what the Civil Rights movement did for all the working poor and middle class of all races.why not include.Hosea Williams,Medger Evers,James Farmer,Daisey Bates,Franklin McCain,Joseph McNeal,Ezell Blair,Jr.,David Richmond,Malcolm X,Huey Newton,Randolph,Asa Philip,Ella Baker,Fannie Lou(Townsend)Hamer, ect.———Also remember Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. Beware of”THE TRANQUILIZING DRUG OF GRADUALISM” you who call yourselfs Progressives and Democrats have way to much of.
I guess that as a small town boy of 7 or 8, I was supposed to know all the bad things associated with those fountains and stand up and protest.
Or not.
Thanks Dakine; Watched the DemocracyNow show on MLK and this part of the ‘beyond vietnam’ speech really struck me as prescient:
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin…we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
And so it seems, despite Obama being elected.