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Books by and about
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Strength to Love /
The Measure of a Man /
Why We Can't Wait
A Testament of Hope /
A Knock at Midnight /
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 1948-1963
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community /
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a
Nation
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Dr. King's Legacy
Lives
By Junious Ricardo
Stanton
The hope of a secure
and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists
who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood.—Martin
Luther King Jr.
When I first read
about the call to occupy Wall Street several months ago
I immediately thought about Reverend Martin Luther King
Jr.’s
Poor People’s
Campaign. In case you are too young
to remember, in 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was planning
a massive nation wide poor people’s campaign to draw
attention to the class warfare raging in the country at
that time. He was attempting to organize and galvanize
hundreds of thousands of poor and working class people
of all colors to amass on Washington D.C. The goal was
to encamp in the nation’s capital to apply pressure on
Congress to stop the imperialist wars in Indo-China,
focus more attention on the plight of the poor and
suffering in this country and redirect governmental
resources on their behalf.
At the same time he
was getting the Poor People’s Campaign off the ground,
King lent his support to the
striking sanitation workers
in Memphis Tennessee. These workers were attempting to
unionize, gain the respect and recognition of the city
administration to negotiate in good faith for fair and
decent wages and the right to collective bargaining. To
me the call to
Occupy Wall Street struck a similar cord
and their activism reminded me of King’s earlier
efforts. I was pleased to see activism and resistance
bloom in the midst of the current political and economic
climate. The Occupy Wall Street movement was a call to
direct action.
Too much emphasis
has been placed today on arm chair activism, social
networking, writing letters, calling legislators and
community service. The time has come for decisive direct
action, civil disobedience, strikes and demonstrations
to challenge and right the wrongs of this society.
Income inequality and corporate intrigue and influence
is higher today than at any time in US history since the
robber baron era. To their credit the young people
behind the Occupy Wall Street movement did not elect to
sit passively by and allow this form of fascism to go
unchallenged. Just like King challenged racial apartheid
and economic injustice these young people are bringing
economic apartheid and the class war to the public’s
consciousness.
Marin Luther King
Jr. was killed because the US government and their
corporate puppeteers feared his talk of economic
apartheid would further radicalize the masses who were
already waking up to how they were being duped, used and
ground up by the US military-industrial complex. King
was the most prominent and widely recognized clergyman
to come out against the Vietnam War. None of the other
well known religious leaders of his day,
Bishop Sheen,
Billy Graham,
Norman Vincent Peale publicly uttered a
word against the devastation and carnage the US was
wrecking in Southeast Asia. King tied the war over
there, the huge expenditures and profits being made by
US companies to the economic privation in this country.
King pointed out the direct correlation between the
money spent on foreign wars and the failure of the
government to address the poverty, hunger, and oppression
here. King’s stance gave a huge boost to the anti-war
movement and put the government on the defensive to the
point it stepped up its counterinsurgency operations
against the civil rights, anti-war and other radical
movements.
The US government
initiated a reign of dirty tricks, terror and violence
against peace demonstrators, civil rights activists, the
migrant worker movement,
La Raza, Black Power, The
American Indian Movement and numerous others. The FBI
and CIA waged a vicious war against the American people
in a fashion that would have made Adolph Hitler proud.
CONINTELPRO and
Operation Chaos were just two of the
government’s more infamous programs to attack the
people. Numerous lives were ruined by the government’s
wickedness, both here and over seas. King’s grass roots,
direct action movement posed a major threat to the
status quo, so the US government killed him.
Lo forty-three
years later we’re seeing history repeat itself. The
legacy of resistance to evil, war and economic
oppression still flickers. The original
Tea Party,
meaning the asymmetric, energetic and unorganized group
of protestors who were extremely concerned about the
government’s rising debt, taxes, the wars and expanding
cost of government was a start of activism but they were
subsequently co-oped by the
Koch brothers who steered
them into the Republican Party. The
Occupy Wall Street
movement saw this and refused to fall into that same
trap. So they wisely kept the movement fluid with no
identifiable (targetable) spokespersons. They also
eschewed dialogue with the powers that be. They were
merely attempting to raise consciousness about the
collusion and corruption between corporations and the
government, corporate criminality, the wars and the
galloping fascism that is engrossing this country.
If you stop and
think about it the original Tea Party activists and the
young people in the Occupy Wall Street movements around
the country are not that different from what Martin
Luther King Jr attempted; only they are doing it on the
local level. So in this regard Martin Luther King’s
legacy still lives. Alas the government response has been
exactly the same, co-option of the Tea Party, first
ignoring then using the media to demonize the Occupy
Wall Street movement and finally
employing violence to
squash the movement altogether. In stead of
assassinating the leaders (who they could not identify
like they did King), they co-opted the Tea Party and
then bum rushed the OWS encampments, beating, pepper
spraying and arresting them.
Four decades ago
war criminals like
Lyndon Johnson,
Robert McNamara,
Richard Nixon and
Henry Kissinger went
scot free. Today
it’s the Wall Street banksters turn to receive a get out
of jail free card. The government is hoping the state’s
violence will discourage and deter future demonstrations
and resistance against USA fascism. Congress just passed
and Obama signed a draconian
bill allowing indefinite
detention without trial of US citizens and ordered the
opening and operation of
FEMA internment camps. Time
will tell if they have succeeded in dousing the fires of
resistance. They may have added more fuel to the fire.
Private gun sales are at an all time high.
As wrong and unjust
as all this appears, rest assured things are not as they
seem. King understood the nature of progress and
struggle. He once said, “Human progress is neither
automatic nor inevitable. . . . Every step toward the goal
of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle;
the tireless exertions and passionate concern of
dedicated individuals.” So as we pause to reflect on and
honor the real legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., let’s
not get duped and side tracked with feel good once a
year community service projects. These times demand more
than that. Marin Luther King openly challenged the evil
of racial apartheid, the wickedness of political
oppression, the waste of war, and the immorality of
economic injustice on a full time, full steam ahead
basis. We can do the same.
Junious Ricardo Stanton was born and
raised in Philadelphia Pennsylvania where he attended the
public schools and matriculated to Cheyney State College in
1965. He graduated in 1969 with a BA in Liberal Arts in
English. From there he went to the University of
Pennsylvania and earned a Master’s Degree in City Planning
in 1971. He took a position with the Philadelphia Court of
Common Pleas as a juvenile probation officer and remained
there thirty one years. He has been from1991 to present
a free lance writer contributing to number
African-American publications such as: Renaissance Magazine,
About Time Magazine, weekly columnist for Scoop U.S.A.,
contributor to Philadelphia Business Review now known as the
Business Review, Former Acting Editor In Chief- Real News,
former contributing writer First World News of Allentown Pa.,
The
Philadelphia New Observer, the National Newspaper Publishers
Association, contributing columnist for The Black Suburban
Journal. In addition he has been contributing writer for HYPE Information Services,
The
Black World Today, Afrikan.Net Web sites, senior writer for
The
Digital Drum, regular contributor to TheBlackList E-groups
and self-syndicate weekly column POSITIVELY BLACK to about
50 African-American newspapers. .
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As King forewarned,
“The salvation of the Negro middle-class is ultimately dependent
upon the salvation of the Negro masses.” Of course it is time for
the Negro middle-class to rise up from its stool of indifference,
stop retreating into dreamlands with flights of unreality, and—with
compassion—aid the less advantaged; bringing their hearts, minds,
and checkbooks to help their less fortunate brothers.—Chaos
or Community
The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the
country are the labor movement and
the Negro freedom movement. Together we can be architects of democracy
in a
South now rapidly industrializing. Together we can re-tool the political
structure of the
South, sending to Congress steadfast liberals who, joining with those
from Northern industrial states, will extend the frontiers of
democracy for the whole nation.—Martin
Luther King at AFL-CIO
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins,
marches and so forth? Isn't negotiations a better path?"
You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is
the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action
seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a
community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to
confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it
can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as
part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather
shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the world
"tension" I have earnestly opposed violent tension,
but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is
necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was
necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals
could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the
unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal,
we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the
kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark
depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of
understanding and brotherhood.—Letter
from Birmingham Jail
As we counsel young
men concerning military service we must clarify for them
our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the
alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to
say that this is the path now being chosen by more than
seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse
College, and I recommend it to all who find the American
course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one.
Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to
give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as
conscientious objectors. These are the times for real
choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when
our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to
survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions
must decide on the protest that best suits his
convictions, but we must all protest.
There is something
seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us
all off on what in some circles has become a popular
crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter
the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something
even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a
symptom of a far deeper malady within the American
spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will
find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned
committees for the next generation. They will be
concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be
concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be
concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be
marching for these and a dozen other names and attending
rallies without end unless there is a significant and
profound change in American life and policy. Such
thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our
calling as sons of the living God. — Beyond
Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Maya Angelou 1993 Bill Clinton Inauguration
On the Pulse of
Morning
The
Revolutionary MLK—Jared Ball: Martin Luther King
Jr. stood for revolutionary transformation; he is
used today to support policies that he fought
against—In a startling interview, columnist and
communications professor Jared Ball discusses how
the image of Martin Luther King Jr. is distorted
every year to foster compliance with the system King
fought against.— CommonDreams
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The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me
The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Jonathan Rieder
“You don’t know me,” Martin Luther King, Jr., once declared to those who criticized his denunciation of the Vietnam War, who wanted to confine him to the ghetto of “black” issues. Now, forty years after being felled by an assassin’s bullet, it is still difficult to take the measure of the man: apostle of peace or angry prophet; sublime exponent of a beloved community or fiery Moses leading his people up from bondage; black preacher or translator of blackness to the white world? This book explores the extraordinary performances through which King played with all of these possibilities, and others too, blending and gliding in and out of idioms and identities. Taking us deep into King’s backstage discussions with colleagues, his preaching to black congregations, his exhortations in mass meetings, and his crossover addresses to whites, Jonathan Rieder tells a powerful story about the tangle of race, talk, and identity in the life of one of America’s greatest moral and political leaders. A brilliant interpretive endeavor grounded in the sociology of culture, The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me delves into the intricacies of King’s sermons, speeches, storytelling, exhortations, jokes, jeremiads, taunts, repartee, eulogies, confessions, lamentation, and gallows humor, as well as the author’s interviews with members of King’s inner circle. The King who emerges is a distinctively modern figure who, in straddling the boundaries of diverse traditions, ultimately transcended them all.
Beyond Vietnam /
Chronology |
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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The White Masters
of the World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest / Black World
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The
Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding
of Haiti
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ChickenBones Store
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posted 13 January 2012
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