MLK Jr Day
The_Non
5,691 Posts
Respect the architect!!!-----------Dude didn't die for dreaming, dude was killed for trying to get poor people a piece of the action. Play Martin's Funeral and reflect on the America we live in today, vs the America we could live in if each of us did our part.
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Dear Martin,
Great God, my Lord what a morning Martin!
The sun is rolling in from faraway places. I watch it reaching out, circling these bare trees like some reverent lover. I have been standing still listening to the morning, and I hear your voice crouched near hills, rising from the mountain tops, breaking the circle of dawn.
You would have been 58 today.
As I point my face toward a new decade, Martin, I want you to know that the country still crowds the spirit. I want you to know that we still hear your footsteps setting out on a road cemented with black bones. I want to know that the stuttering of guns could not stop your light from crashing against cathedrals chanting piety while hustling the world.
Great God, what a country???
The decade after your death docked like a spaceship on a new planet. Voyagers all we were. We were the aliens walking up the 70???s, a holocaust people on the move looking out from dark eyes. We were youngbloods, spinning hip syllables while saluting death in a country neutral with pain.
And our children saw the mirage of plenty spilling from money mad sands.
And they ran toward the desert.
And the gods of sand made them immune to words that strengthen the breast.
And they became scavengers walking on the earth.
And you can see them playing. Hide-and-go-seek robbers. Native sons. Running on their knees. Reinventing slavery on asphalt. Peeling their umbilical cords for a gold chain.
And you can see them on Times Square, in NYC, Martin, selling their 11-, 12-yeal orld, 13-, 14-year-old bodies to suburban forefathers.
And you can see them on Market Street in Philadelphia bobbing up bellywise, young fishes for old sharks
And no cocks are crowing on those mean streets.
Great God, what a morning it???ll be someday Martin!
That decade fell like a stone on our eyes. Our movements. Rhythms. Loves. Books. Delivered us from the night, drove out the fears keeping some of us hoarse. New births knocking at the womb kept us walking.
We crossed the cities while a backlash of judges tried to turn us into moles with blackrobed words of reverse racism. But we knew. And our knowing was like a sister???s embrace. We crossed the land where famine was fed in public. Where black stomachs exploded on the world???s days while men embalmed their eyes and tongues in gold. But we knew. And our knowing squatted from memory.
Sitting on our past, we watch the new decade dawning. These are strange days, Martin, when the color of freedom becomes disco fever; when soap operas populate our Zulu braids; as the world turns to the conservative right and general hospitals are closing in black neighborhoods and the young and restless are drugged by early morning reefer butts. And houses tremble.
These are dangerous days, Martin, when cowboy-riding presidents corral Blacks (and others) in a common crown of thorns; when nuclear-toting generals recite an alphabet of blood; when multinational corporations assassinate ancient cultures while inaugurating new civilizations. Comeout comeout wherever you are. Waiting to be born.
But, Martin, on this day, your 54th birthday???with all the reversals???we have learned that black is the beginning of everything.
it was black in the universe before the sun;
it was black in the mind before we opened our eyes;
it was black In the womb of our mother;
black is the beginning.
and if we are the beginning we will be forever.
Martin. I have learned too that fear is not a black man or woman. Fear cannot disturb the length of those who struggle against material gains for self-aggrandizement. Fear cannot disturb the good of people who have moved to a meeting place where the pulse pounds out freedom and justice for the universe.
Now is the changing of the tides, Martin. You forecast it where leaves dance on the wings of man. Martin. Listen. On this your 54th birthday, listen and you will hear the earth delivering up curfews to the missionaries and the assassins. Listen. And you will hear the tribal songs:
Ayeee Ayeee Ayooooo Ayooooo Ayeee Ayeee
Malcolm??? Ke wa rona*
Robeson??? Ke wa rona
Lumumba??? Ke wa rona
Fannie Lou??? Ke wa rona
Garvey??? Ke wa rona
Johnbrown??? Ke wa rona
Tubman??? Ke wa rona
Mandela??? Ke wa rona
(free Mandela, free Mandela!)
Assata??? Ke wa rona
As we go with you to the sun,
as we walk in the dawn, turn our eyes
Eastward and let the prophecy come true
and let the prophecy come true.
Great God, Martin, what a morning, it will be!
--Sonia Sanchez
*he is ours
No! These teachings are for you here today.
"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
And from the same speech:
"This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:
'Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese [Iraqi] and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.'"
From this moving and detailed policy speech on protesting the war; http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html
Dan
Today I am going to open my still sealed Nathan Davis - Suite for DR. MLK that I won in the Heatrock auctions.
The Priest and the Levite looked on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around...
It's possible that they thought the man on the ground was merely faking
That he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to lull them over there for quick and easy seizure
And so the first question that the Priest asked: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
Then the good samaritan came by, and he reversed the question, "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
That's the question before you tonight.
Not "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job?"
Not "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office, every day and every week as a Pastor?"
The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?"
The question is if I do not[/b] stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?"
That's the question!
---------------------
I wish everyone a great day of service, rememberance and appreciation.
I'm off to paint MLK banners with kids and listen to sermons.
Fulfill the dream.
I hear you (its my birthday too).
i know that stupid ass......... you
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."
-Martin Luther King,Jr., April 4, 1967
While America celebrates the dream, I will celebrate the continuing struggle.
-JRoot
---
In honor of Martin Luther King day
Body: You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction.
You call me "Cracker", "Honkey", "Whitey" and even "The Man" and you think it's OK.
But when I call you, "nigger", "Kike", "Towelhead", "Sand-nigger", "Camel Jockey", "Beaner" or "Chink" you call me a racist.
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you, so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live
You have the United Negro College Fund.
You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month.
You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah
You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi
You have the NAACP.
You have BET.
If we had WET(white entertainment television) we'd be racists.
If we had a White Pride Day you would call us racists.
If we had white history month, we'd be racists.
If we had an organization for only whites to "advance" our lives, we'd be racists.
If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships, you know we'd be racists.
In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists.
You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.
You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us.
But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug-dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, you call him a racist.
I am white.
I am proud.
But, you call me a racist.
Why is it that only whites can be racists?
Repost if you agree
What happened to Dr. King the evening of the day after he gave this address is well-known. What happened to the sanitation workers has been forgotten.
Stay focused on what counts,
JRoot
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 3, 1968
Memphis, TN
Walk tall,
JRoot
I've had 'Strength To Love' and 'Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?' resting on my bookshelf for years without actually reading them. This would be a good time to do so.