In April 1963 (only 45 years ago), a young Martin Luther King, Jr. (then only 34 years old) lead a march in Birmingham, Alabama for which he was jailed. While he sat in his jail cell, a group of clergymen sent him a letter which basically asked him why he brought his demonstrations to disrupt the peace of Birmingham.But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century BC left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation 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 word "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.
The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you no forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" -- then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Blogger Ann Althouse takes Republican Candidate Rep. Ron Paul to task for some of his extremist right-wing views. Speaking with Stephen Kaus on bloggingheads tv, she brings up a number of salient points that should be pondered while considering his position on a number of issues. She writes, "I feel like the people who are so enamored with those states' rights positions and that libertarian position... Coming from the South... an older person... who grew up in the segregated South... How do I know he's not a racist? ... I find it offensive, the positions he's taking, but maybe it's the pretty face that you put on the position that is, if not really racist, just insensitive about race?"
"Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with "'civil rights,' quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda." It also denounced "the media" for believing that "America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks."
so i go to the salt lake tribune, the hometown paper of the mormon church... it seems that they can't seem to dig up this phantom march!in other words, mitt romney is traipsing around the country LYING about his father's involvement with MARTIN LUTHER KING and the civil rights movement. as i wrote in a previous comment on plezWorld, i'm disturbed when Martin Luther King's lieutenants (like andrew young & jesse jackson) make a mockery of his legacy with their actions... so it makes my blood boil when some right-wing vote-whoring politician who couldn't care less (LITERALLY & FIGURATIVELY) about Black folk ties his political fortunes to the struggle of Black folk in America... mitt romney is plain sickening!
the boston phoenix is in the state where mitt was the governor for 4 years... they printed this explanation: "A spokesperson for Mitt Romney now tells the Phoenix that George W. Romney [Mitt's father] and Martin Luther King Jr. marched together in June, 1963 -- although possibly not on the same day or in the same city."
on to the detroit free press which is located in the state where george romney was governor when this march in 1963 with MLK allegedly took place. A spokesman for romney is quoted as saying, "He was speaking figuratively, not literally."
Hi Owen --
We cannot approve the spot with it being Danny Glover's opinion that the Bush Administration is destroying the Constitution. If you have documentation that it is indeed being destroyed, we can look at that.
Sorry about that,
Erin
a few things i've learned as a result of my affiliation with the AfroSpear:i am a damn good husband and father - i love my family and they love me... and i'm so fortunate because there a lot of people out there who would love to be in my shoes. i am not a Liberal - if anything, i have a growing disdain for those who spout a Liberal dogma... it does nothing for me... i'm a straight up Moderate - as shown here and here. i am not very Religious - kinda spiritual, maybe even agnostic... all those chilly mornings that my older brothers dragged me out of my warm bed to attend Sunday School and sing in the church choir are all for naught at this point. but i better stop there before i offend one of my readers. i am not a very good writer - i started and sputtered to a stop with my Great American Novel so many times in my youth, i think i'll stick to short 5 or 6 line blurbs so that i don't get in trouble (i have an over-reliance on the ellipsis...) i am an attention whore - i won't be satisfied until i have 1,000 people stopping by plezWorld on a daily basis... and i happen to know it ain't gonna happen, because i don't write half as good as Field Negro or Dave J. i am growing increasingly tired of the Race Card - something tells me that white folk start to think we're "crying wolf" because that damn thing gets played just about every other day... note to the AfroSpear, use it sparingly! i still find that that KFC commercial to be offensive!
The fight to overturn Georgia's Photo Voter ID Law has been raging since it was passed in 2006. Civil rights groups, most notably the NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Georgia, have decried the law. In an article on August 23, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that these groups are "claiming that [the photo voter id law] creates an unnecessary extra step for people [to exercise] their right to vote. The groups claim that minorities, the elderly, poor and disabled are especially affected because of the likelihood they either do not possess a valid photo ID or would have difficulty getting a free one provided by the state."[L]awyers for those groups tried to show that the state's program to educate voters on the change - voters previously could show non-photo ID or just sign a statement swearing to their identity - has been insufficient, particularly in targeting the people most likely to lack photo ID. Plaintiff's lawyers also were critical of the state's decision to not target certain groups, such as African-Americans, in their advertising efforts, even though blacks have historically been discriminated against, particularly in the South.On Thursday, September 6, 2007, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy threw out the lawsuit that challenged Georgia's Photo Voter ID law. In upcoming elections, voters will have to present a photo ID as proof of identity prior to being able to vote. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, "the judge ruled that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the 2006 law's photo ID requirement unduly burdens the right to vote. The Georgia State Supreme Court this summer dismissed a similar suit filed in Fulton County Superior Court."
State officials contend they have embarked on a multifaceted campaign that includes mailers, radio advertisements, automated telephone calls, brochures and other means to spread the word about the photo ID requirement before local elections in 23 Georgia counties on September 18, 2007.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs attempted to poke holes in the educational campaign. They presented a literacy expert, Georgia State University professor Sheryl Gowen, who testified that the letters were written on a 12th-grade level, making it difficult for more than half of the state's population to read. That's critical, lawyers contend, because many of the people who lack a photo ID are likely to be less educated, possibly making it difficult for them to comprehend the letter.
The question that this raises is: Are the efforts to vilify Justice Thomas really in the best interests of the black community — or the nation as a whole? Because he is a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas is arguably one of the most, if not the most powerful blacks in the country. In addition, he represents the cutting edge of an emerging debate between the traditional black liberal leadership (and its white liberal allies) and a new black conservative alternative about how best to address the future development of the African-American community. If discourse and debate is central to a healthy, well-functioning democracy, there should be a least some concern that the political development of the black community is being limited by the attempts of many black liberals to silence black conservatives, such as Justice Thomas, with name-calling ("Uncle Tom") and marginalizing.
The passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act brought the longstanding debate in the black community between self-reliance versus reliance on government effectively to an end — at least among the African-American leadership class. The debate was embodied in the early-20th-century positions of Booker T. Washington — who argued for self-reliance and internal development — and W. E. B. Dubois — who argued for massive political and systemic change. With the enactment of the new law, advancement for the African-American community was henceforth primarily tied to increasing the federal government's role in promoting opportunity for blacks. This meant not only reducing and eliminating illegal forms of discrimination, but also finding ways to make up for past injustices. While in the past African Americans argued that eliminating barriers and unfair, unjust, and illegal constraints were all that was needed, the new orthodoxy argued that the black community needed a progressive, activist government committed to promoting the rights of African Americans and redressing the wrongs of the past. Thus was the foundation for affirmative action and a variety of other race-based programs born.
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