On Dr. King

This post on Dr. King is early for two reasons:
a) I won't be able to post on it on the observed day
b) there is an article that I think is extremely relevant that the readers of GG should read.

Anyone familiar with The Ghost knows that I am appalled by the focus on the "I have a dream" mode of Dr. King by the larger society and a large portion of the black community. Such a focus completely ignores the movement that King made before his death to deal with the militarism of the US and the plight of the exploited poor (as opposed to the lazy poor). Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes an excellent article entitled Exploiting MLK Jr. which discusses how much people were against Dr. King during his time, especially those who now benefit from his sacrifice: Black so called religious conservatives.

Quote:
The Lyndon Johnson White House turned hostile. Corporate and foundation supporters slowly turned off the money spigot. The NAACP, Urban League, black Democrats, and some in King's own organization turned their backs on him. During his last days, King spent much of his time fundraising and defending his policies against the critics within and without his organization. The backbiting, carping of and backpedaling from King -- not by his enemies, but by some of his one-time friends and supporters -- got worse when he railed against the penchant for lavish personal spending, luxury apartments and fancy homes by some of his group's staffers.

I'll pause here to note that I have a position that many of the people involved in the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) were actually in it because they wanted access to the goods and not because of any real feelings of justice. I believe that Garvey had also leveled similar charges at the NAACP when he moved to the US.

n his last installment on King, “At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68,” Taylor Branch tells how King stormed out of a planning meeting for his Poor People's March, in fury at the attacks directed at him by some of his top aides who wanted to scrap the March. The issue of uniting masses of poor people for economic uplift smacked of class war and was too risky and dangerous; they feared that it would hopelessly alienate their Democratic Party boosters. King was unfazed by their criticism and hurled another broadside at them for their personal egoism, selfishness and opportunism. King's civil rights friends weren't the only ones that took shots at him.

Many black ministers joined in the King bash. At the National Baptist Convention in 1961, then (and now) the largest black religious group in America, King and a band of dissidents challenged the convention's leaders to give more active support to the civil rights battles. They wanted none of that. They flung threats and insults at King, and the civil rights advocate-ministers engaged in fisticuffs with them and slandered King as a "hoodlum and crook."


I think that if we look at some of the activities of some black Christian people and clergy we would see the same behavior. I would point to the so-called "Justice Sunday" held in Philly as a prime example.

Peace.
GG

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