Everone is talking about August 28, 2010 when Glen Beck and Sarah Palin will hold a Tea Party event in the exact spot Marin Luther King gave his "I Have A Dream Speech." King had a vision of peace between minorities and majorities, the rich and the poor.
The television cable stations will cover this event with their own spin. But one thing does not need spinning; Martin Luther King's speech. It will resonate for centuries to come, because it was a cry of God. King could not stand by and watch his brother suffer in any way shape or form because of their gender, race, disability, or economic situation. I AM FREE TO VOTE BECAUSE OF HIS SACRAFICE FOR JUSTICE.
Some people are upset about the event planned for that day. Why. No one can rewrite history, it has been penned and attested to. Christians faced a similar dillema years ago. There was a group of pagan worshipers who had turned to Christianity but held on to a pagan celebration that had just been a part of their tradition. Seeing how difficult it was to break this tradition, the Christians decided to overlay the pagan holiday with a Christian celebration to deminish the significance of the celebration. The pagans got to keep their pagan celebration and Christians could point to the new holiday as a Christian holiday. Eventually, as generations continued, they forgot the pagan entity celebrated and celebrated the heralded Christian celebration. The date the Christian church turned from pagan to Christian: December 25th the birth date of Jesus. Is Glen Beck trying to overlay Dr. King's speech with the Tea Party Movement? If so, it will never work. I pray the day will be peaceful and a manifestation of King's dream where people of all races are joined shoulder to shoulder for a common purpose. I hope to see a sea of white, black, yellow, brown and red celebrating the liberties of American. Is this the plan?
Below is a refresher to help us to remember Martin Luther King.
In the book "Judgment Days" the author writes about the 1960’s, a time of social and political turbulence. CHANGE was being demanded from those faced with the indignities of being denied the right to vote, to eat in restaurants, to use public restrooms, to hold a job, and to choose a dwelling place and not be judged on the color of their skin, origin of ancestry, or gender.
The cry for CHANGE demanded a leader able to organize and represent the people. A Baptist preacher trained in philosophy and theology would be the one to answer the people’s cry. Martin Luther King Jr. would come to symbolize a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love. His wise choice of true pacifism was met with resistance, but when scenes were shown on national television of black protestors kneeling, praying, and singing while whites yelled, spat, and threw objects or beat them, the civil rights movement gained sympathy and support from fair-minded citizens across the country.
King knew the movement of the masses was about more than one man-one person. It was a protest of the people who were tired of their rights being trampled. He knew injustice anywhere was a threat to justice everywhere.
An August 28th march, organized by King, of 200,000 Americans in Washington, D.C. was the backdrop for King’s famous I have A Dream speech. This is the same march that would inspire the legendary composer and singer Sam Cook to write A Change Is Coming. This song would be played for over a week following the election of America’s first African American President elect, Barack Obama.
King pressed forward when opposition leaders said “You are moving too fast” or when relatively moderate local white clergy called his protests “unwise” and “untimely.” His reply: “Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say ‘Wait.’” This is the same sentiment argued when then Senator Barack Obama decided to run for president. King addressed a question posed to the movement, “When will you be satisfied?” in his I Have A Dream speech he answered: “…not until America is a nation where all citizens could come together in a society of equal opportunity in which differences of race, religion, national origin and region were no longer barriers to brotherhood and peace.”
King lived to see the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed. He believed both Acts would establish a solid basis of legal equality for Black Americans, but more needed to be done. His civil rights goals evolved into class and economic issues. He was trying to put together a populist coalition in which poor blacks, whites, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans could seek to transform the economy. This populist coalition would address the problems of unemployment, inadequate education, job training, housing, and health care; problems reminiscent of today and challenges facing President Obama. Martin Luther King did not live to see such an America.
It is clear the Civil Rights Movement led by King, demanded by the masses, directly influenced and inspired future protests against the Vietnam War, equal rights for women and older workers, rights for the handicapped, and the struggle overseas for human rights. Before his death King prophetically claimed he had been to the mountain top- he had seen the promised land.
His service and sacrifice of life must continue to inspire the masses to work toward the dream of ‘Justice for all’ whether they are able to live to see it come to pass or not. The people’s cry for CHANGE, echoes on, always waiting for a symbolic leader to answer. The attack is on ignorance, discrimination, poverty, and disease; not on a particular people.
BLACK FEET
by Dorothy Guyton
Move fast little black feet Master needs a drink
He awaits the arrival of the cold well water
Keep your black feet moving no time to rest or think
Aunt Suckie is chopping cotton; so is your six year old daughter
Move fast black feet to quickly birth your slave baby
One day in bed a luxury; back to work back to history
Recuperation denied; a gift from God to only gentility.
With coarse matted hair and dark brown skin you be no lady.
Move fast black feet the hounds are on your scent
Keep pushing on to the promised land where you can be
A free black person no longer for sale or rent
A place where big noses and lips are treated with humanity.
Move fast black feet stand in line to protest
Your right to be counted to vote for president
Still learning to read and spell to speak eloquent
Rising each day free to give and do your best.
Move fast black feet its time to go to college
To sit where science, history, and math are being taught
To enter into that new Garden of Eden; price paid for knowledge
Through blood shed and tears it was earned and bravely fought.
Move fast black feet the bullets are whizzing by
Innocent life struck down on streets by thugs
In darkness they hide to conceal their identity their mugs
Black feet survived so much to live forget and now die
Move fast black feet to remind our people of the past
To tell them freedom is flighty and doesn’t always last
To remember black feet toiled once upon a time
For stripes upon the back and for sale for not a crime
Move fast black feet to the picket lines once again
Raise voices and hands that loudly ask can you see me
We all have fought to live and to forever live life free
For every ethnicity of people who ever claimed to be human
Move fast black feet for while all of you slept
Jim Crow’s Law came back into today it stealthily crept
Nappy hair, monkey brains is the story now being told
Back to the bidder’s block, Look! A negro is being sold.
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