“…as a first step toward the journey to full equality, we will have to engage in a radical reordering of national priorities.” The check from the “bank of justice” to our Black citizens is 60 years overdue.
- “Forced-birther” vs. “Pro-lifer.”
- “Educational intimidation” vs. “Parental Rights.”
- “Domestic Terrorist” vs. “Patriot, White Supremacist, or Nationalist who commits violence”
Calling things by their accurate names is important. It’s been 60 years since the Rev. Martin Luther King gave his epic speech calling for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States for a crowd of 250,000 at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The only thing Republicans can remember, however, is one line about a dream. Renaming it may help them remember both the true nature of that speech and that the racial disparities that MLK, Jr. railed against have only gotten worse due to government policies. (see EPI report: tinyurl.com/60-years)
- “We’ve come to cash this check” vs. “I Have a Dream.”
Action – Tell Congress it’s got 60 years of progress to make up for! YOU who have friends/family in RED states – have them call their legislators too!
Minimal call or email script to your representative and senators: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want Rep./Sen. [____] to read this report on racial and economic equity (tinyurl.com/60-years) because the check from the “bank of justice” that Dr. King described in his speech is 60 years overdue. He demanded that Congress address the racial disparities in wages, wealth, and homeownership for Black Americans, legislation that will help many other Americans as well. I’m going to read off a list of bills that need to be pushed through. Thank you!
- Raise the Wage Act, H.R.4889, S.2488
- Protecting the Right to Organize Act, H.R.20, S.567
- Housing for All Act, H.R.5254, S.2701
- Freedom to Vote Act, H.R.11, S.1
- Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, H.R.3305, S.1606
- Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, H.R.40, S.40
Contacts
Cosponsor status
- Raise the Wage Act, H.R.4889, S.2488
- Protecting the Right to Organize Act, H.R.20, S.567
- Housing for All Act, H.R.5254, S.2701
- Freedom to Vote Act, H.R.11, S.1
- Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act
- Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act
Deeper dive – Weird stuff that’s happened since his speech.
Or – what has NOT happened 60 years later?
In the 60 years since the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, little progress has been made in removing barriers to the full equitable integration of Black Americans into the U.S. economy.
Was the “I Have a Dream” part of the original speech?
Not officially. Dr. King’s own title for his speech was – “Normalcy, Never Again,” or its earlier draft “Cashing a Cancelled Check.” The whole “I have a Dream” part was improvised, inspired by a shout-out by Mahalia Jackson.
But the only thing the GOP can remember is this one line, which they twist to diminish him from a powerful radical civil rights activist who criticized capitalism, US imperialism, income inequality, and white supremacy, into a harmless symbol that Ron DeSantis, for example, claimed would have despised Critical Race Theory, the study of structural racism in America, and who would champion the evasive racism of “color-blindness.” In true fascist fashion, they are also suppressing the actual history of MLK, and the civil rights movement in schools and substituting right-wing propaganda.
The Bangor Daily News just got caught at it.
Maine newspaper apologizes for running a redacted version of ‘I Have a Dream’ speech
“…readers condemned the paper for omitting the parts of the speech that explicitly address the links between systemic racism and poverty…The board continued: “It is clear that this institutional stagnation was a mistake on our part and that our thinking needs to be revisited, especially in light of recent efforts to erase some of the more controversial aspects of American history.”
Below is his full speech with highlighted words indicating those words removed by Bangor Daily News editor and red for words added/edited.) And this version was one of their longer ones in the 13 years they’ve been running it.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our 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 the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.
And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
(Only part GOP remembers)
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in the state of Alabama with its vicious racists, with its whose governor‘s having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which that I go back return to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims’ pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village 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 Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.
The “Santa-fication” of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“However difficult it is to hear, however shocking it is to hear, we’ve got to face the fact that America is a racist country. We have got to face the fact that racism still occupies the throne of our nation. I don’t think we will ultimately solve the problem of racial injustice until this is recognized, and until this is worked on.“
—Live Q&A with Martin Luther King Jr. at the sixty-eighth annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, March 25, 1968.
Did MLK want us to be “colorblind”. TLDR – “NO!”
“The idea that King was color-blind is a myth. King was not color-blind, but color-courageous.When we look at the vast scope of his work, instead of taking one quote out of context, we’ll see that King never said that the way to advance racial equality was to ignore our racial differences…
But here’s the thing: in our day, color-blindness is proving to be wholly ineffective. Why? Listen carefully: Because those who cannot see race also cannot see racism. Those who refuse to countenance racial categories are more prone to miss racial inequities; they are also prone to suppress important conversations about race that we still need to have.
There’s now reams of research to demonstrate something very surprising: color-blindness actually leads to racial inequity, precisely the opposite of what was intended. In his phenomenal book The Psychology of Colorblindness, Philip Mazzocco did a review of all the research on colorblindness. His conclusion was this: “Although the preference for colorblindness may be well-intentioned for some, the consequences of colorblindness . . . appear to be almost entirely negative both with respect to racial minorities, and society at large.“
“Slavery wasn’t so bad” propaganda machine takes over the Florida Education System. MLK get’s pulled in too.
Prager U has been described as a right-wing propaganda machine, with quasi-white Nationalist content and a host who may be a White Nationalist. The content for children includes includes animated characters meeting Booker T. Washington who underplays slavery and a cheerful little video on the murderous enslaver Christopher Columbus. Their adult content contends that “there is no gender wage gap, that “Blacks in power don’t empower Blacks,” that Islam is holding society back, and that Muslims naturally hate Jews.
(Newsone) “Prager once claimed falsely and without evidence that Black students commit the “overwhelming” majority of on-campus hate crimes and that if any racist and/or anti-Black graffiti is found on campuses “it was Black kids that did it” as a race hoax. Prager also appears to be very upset that white people can’t use anti-Black racial slurs anymore.”
PragerU has posted at least two videos on MLK praising the “great conservative thinker, Dr. King“, who was, in actuality, an anti-war socialist or democratic socialist who focused on the capitalist and social hierarchy that privileged white Americans and oppressed black Americans. He realized that “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism” are cornerstones of the United States and believed that the U.S. government is the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
Ignoring all that, “Today is MLK Day” extolls “color-blindness,” and two cartoon characters meet MLK in “Leo and Layla meet Martin Luther King Jr.” where they discuss only the “I Have a Dream” part of his speech and “standing up for what is right.”
MLK’s answer on our education: “Soon the doctrine of white supremacy was imbedded in every textbook and preached in practically every pulpit. It became a structural part of the culture. And men then embraced this philosophy, not as the rationalization of a lie, but as the expression of a final truth.”
“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn. The reality of substantial investment to assist Negroes into the twentieth century, adjusting to Negro neighbors and genuine school integration, is still a nightmare for all too many white Americans.”
Resources
- (theconversation) How the distortion of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s words enables more, not less, racial division within American society
- (directTV) HOW MAHALIA JACKSON INSPIRED MLK’S “I HAVE A DREAM” SPEECH
- (Momnibus) Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act
- (aaihs.org) Critical Race Theory and the Misappropriating of Martin Luther King, Jr.
- (wiki) I Have a Dream
- (patreon.com) Teach MLK Not CRT
- (lucid.substack) PragerU: A Far-Right Propaganda Machine Now in Florida Schools. PragerU delivers a toxic mix of conspiracy theories, racism, homophobia, anti-feminism, and neoliberalism
- (EPI) Chasing the dream of equityHow policy has shaped racial economic disparities
- (theroot) #ReclaimMLK: My apology to the “Most Dangerous Negro” in America
- (theroot) Martin Luther King Jr.: “My Dream has truned into a nightmare
- (newsone) Florida Approves Educational Lessons From PragerU, Which Was Founded By Suspected White Supremacist -Dennis Prager, a right-wing radio host, once claimed falsely and without evidence that Black students commit the “overwhelming” majority of on-campus hate crimes.
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