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Showing posts with label Black Radicalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Black Radicalism. Show all posts
Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States by Charisse Burden-Stelly University of Chicago Press, 2023
[Publication date: November 14, 2023]
A radical explication of the ways anti-Black racial oppression has infused the US government’s anti-communist repression.
In the early twentieth century, two panics emerged in the United
States. The Black Scare was rooted in white Americans’ fear of Black
Nationalism and dread at what social, economic, and political equality
of Black people might entail. The Red Scare, sparked by communist
uprisings abroad and subversion at home, established anticapitalism as a
force capable of infiltrating and disrupting the American order. In Black Scare / Red Scare,
Charisse Burden-Stelly meticulously outlines the conjoined nature of
these state-sanctioned panics, revealing how they unfolded together as
the United States pursued capitalist domination. Antiradical repression,
she shows, is inseparable from anti-Black oppression, and vice versa.
Beginning her account in 1917—the year of the Bolshevik Revolution, the
East St. Louis Race Riot, and the Espionage Act—Burden-Stelly traces
the long duration of these intertwined and mutually reinforcing
phenomena. She theorizes two bases of the Black Scare / Red Scare: US
Capitalist Racist Society, a racially hierarchical political economy
built on exploitative labor relationships, and Wall Street Imperialism,
the violent processes by which businesses and the US government
structured domestic and foreign policies to consolidate capital and
racial domination. In opposition, Radical Blackness embodied the
government’s fear of both Black insurrection and Red instigation. The
state’s actions and rhetoric therefore characterized Black
anticapitalists as foreign, alien, and undesirable. This reactionary
response led to an ideology that Burden-Stelly calls True Americanism,
the belief that the best things about America were absolutely not Red
and not Black, which were interchangeable threats.
Black Scare / Red Scare
illuminates the anticommunist nature of the US and its governance, but
also shines a light on a misunderstood tradition of struggle for Black
liberation. Burden-Stelly highlights the Black anticapitalist organizers
working within and alongside the international communist movement and
analyzes the ways the Black Scare/Red Scare reverberates through ongoing
suppression of Black radical activism today. Drawing on a range of
administrative, legal, and archival sources, Burden-Stelly incorporates
emancipatory ideas from several disciplines to uncover novel insights
into Black political minorities and their legacy.
REVIEWS:
“Burden-Stelly is not content with simply contributing to existing scholarship. She shakes things up. And Black Scare / Red Scare
hits with volcanic force, sweeping away the prevailing tendency to
underestimate the Black Marxist threat to racial capitalism and the
embedded anti-Blackness driving state repression. Burden-Stelly details
precisely how the ‘political economy of capitalist racism’ played a
decisive role in the super-exploitation and subjugation of the Black
working class, resulting in a protracted war on Black radical movements.
A powerful, pathbreaking work that not only reorients the long history
of anticommunism on Black liberation but moves the theory of racial
capitalism to an entirely new level.” -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
“Burden-Stelly is one of our most brilliant radical thinkers and scholars. In Black Scare / Red Scare
she recounts, reassesses, and reframes the historical relationship
between white supremacy and anti-communism. In light of growing racist
authoritarian movements today, the book could not be more timely.
Powerful and powerfully relevant.” -- Barbara Ransby, historian,
activist, and author of the award-winning Ella Baker and the Black
Freedom Movement
“Engaging various disciplines including Black studies and political theory, Black Scare / Red Scare is
a highly sophisticated and timely book. Beginning with the Bolshevik
Revolution and ending with contemporary federal campaigns aimed at
surveilling and quelling radical Black thought and activism,
Burden-Stelly’s deeply researched study presents the long history of two
overlapping panics: the Black Scare and Red Scare. A major contribution
to the field of African American history, Burden-Stelly brilliantly
illuminates how anti-Black and anticommunist sentiments unfolded as the
United States pursued capitalist and global dominance. Black Scare / Red Scare is
certain to transform our understanding of the origins of anti-Black
radicalism and histories of Black activists’ collective fight for
liberation and struggle against ‘US Capitalist Racist Society.’” --
LaShawn D. Harris, Michigan State University
“This book is truly one of a kind. The subject matter is timely, and its analysis could not be more original. Black Scare / Red Scare will
spark widespread debate and continue to be read for many years to
come.” -- Jonathan Fenderson, Washington University in St. Louis
“Black Scare / Red Scare
is a historical and theoretical tour de force. Burden-Stelly explains
how the development of anti-Communism and the suppression of Black
radicalism became intertwined central governing priorities that
bolstered US capitalism from the First World War to the Cold War and
beyond. The eventual construction by government officials of what
Burden-Stelly calls ‘True Americanism’ legitimized business interests’
racialized profiteering by condemning its critics as radical alien
outsiders. These trends reshaped all branches and levels of government.
No previous book has analyzed the dizzying array of committees and
organizations whose purpose was to quash democratic opponents to US
capitalism: the FBI and its Dies Committee, paid informants and
infiltrators, and the courts all dedicated untold resources to smashing
threats to US racial hierarchy and the economic inequality it fostered. Black Scare / Red Scare
ultimately reveals a countersubversive political tradition, developed
over the past century, that connects to current attacks on ‘Black
Identity Extremism’ and ‘wokeism’ as distractions from actual fascist
developments in American society. All scholars and activists interested
in antiracism and democracy in America need to engage with this
pathbreaking book.” -- Erik Gellman, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
“With Black Scare / Red Scare,
Burden-Stelly enters the pantheon of Black radical thinkers, past and
present. Analyzing phenomena ranging from the structural location of
Blackness to the resurgence of fascism, Black Scare / Red Scare demystifies
the processes that subjugate Black lives and sustain economic
domination. Do not miss this meticulous and uncompromising study.” --
Vaughn Rasberry, Stanford University
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Charisse Burden-Stelly is associate professor of African American studies at Wayne State University. She is the coauthor of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History and the coeditor of Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writing and Reproducing Domination: On the Caribbean Postcolonial State, a collection of essays by Percy C. Hintzen.
Death's Futurity: The Visual Life of Black Power by Sampada Aranke Duke University Press, 2023
[Publication date: February 24, 2023]
In Death’s Futurity
Sampada Aranke examines the importance of representations of death to
Black liberation. Aranke analyzes posters, photographs, journalism, and
films that focus on the murders of Black Panther Party members Lil’
Bobby Hutton, Fred Hampton, and George Jackson to construct a visual
history of the 1960s and 1970s Black Power era. She shows how Black
radicals used these murders to engage in political action that imagined
Black futurity from the position of death. Photographs of Hutton that
appeared on flyers and posters called attention to the condition of his
death while the 1971 documentary The Murder of Fred Hampton
enabled the consideration of Hampton’s afterlife through visual
meditations on his murder. Printmaking and political posters surrounding
Jackson’s murder marked the transition from Black Power to the prison
abolition movement in ways that highlighted the relationship between
surveillance, policing, incarceration, and anti-Black violence. By
foregrounding the photographed, collaged, filmed, and drawn Black body,
Aranke demonstrates that corporeality and corpses are crucial to the
efforts to shape visions of a Black future free from white supremacy.
REVIEWS:
"The
author’s close readings of the role of visual artifacts in generating
consciousness, agency, and a sense of futurity about a better future in
their audiences is both compelling and original, and her engaging prose
makes it a pleasure to read."―Simon Stow, European Journal of American Studies
"Aranke
provides a lyrical and materially nuanced account of how the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense mobilized a range of visual media,
objects, and tactics. . . . In the process, Aranke not only reorients
our understanding of 'the political' in art of the 1960s, but also puts
tremendous pressure on art-historical conceits such as 'the curatorial,'
which in the Panthers’ hands does not mean protecting priceless
artworks within neoliberal institutions, but rather involves preserving
the bloodstained objects left in [Fred] Hampton’s apartment in order to
make visible the anti-Black violence that enables the coherence of
American 'civil society" and the ongoing expansion of the carceral state
undergirding it."―Artforum
“Sampada
Aranke’s writing represents what is most exciting about contemporary
cultural inquiry situated at the intersection of Black studies and
art-critical praxis. In this provocative and bracing book she enriches
our political and philosophical understanding of the Panthers’ ambitions
and takes up the challenge laid down by Black radical thinkers to
consider forms of death as revolutionary acts, all while reframing our
assumptions about the work of writers who have become foundational to
the project of critical theory in the United States. This rich and
highly compelling contribution to Black studies will be of immense
interest to students and scholars across the humanities.” -- Huey
Copeland, author of ― Bound to Appear: Art, Slavery, and the Site of Blackness in Multicultural America
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sampada Aranke is Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Martin Luther King Was A Radical, Not A Saint January 20, 2014 by Peter Dreier Truthout News Analysis
President Lyndon B. Johnson and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. meet at the White House, 1966.
(Photo: Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum )
The
official US beatification of Martin Luther King has come at the heavy
price of silence about his radical espousal of economic justice and
anticolonialism.
It is easy to forget that in his day, in his own
country, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was considered a dangerous
troublemaker. Even President John Kennedy worried that King was being
influenced by Communists. King was harassed by the FBI and vilified in
the media. The establishment's campaign to denigrate King worked. In
August 1966 - as King was bringing his civil rights campaign to Northern
cities to address poverty, slums, housing segregation and bank lending
discrimination - the Gallup Poll found that 63 percent of Americans had
an unfavorable opinion of King, compared with 33 percent who viewed him
favorably.
Today Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is viewed as
something of an American saint. The most recent Gallup Poll discovered
that 94 percent of Americans viewed him in a positive light. His
birthday is a national holiday. His name adorns schools and street
signs. In 1964, at age 35, he was the youngest person to receive the
Nobel Peace Prize. Americans from across the political spectrum invoke
King's name to justify their beliefs and actions.
In fact, King
was a radical. He believed that America needed a "radical redistribution
of economic and political power." He challenged America's class system
and its racial caste system. He was a strong ally of the nation's labor
union movement. He was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, where he
had gone to support a sanitation workers' strike. He opposed US
militarism and imperialism, especially the country's misadventure in
Vietnam.
In his critique of American society and his strategy for
changing it, King pushed the country toward more democracy and social
justice.
If he were alive today, he would certainly be standing
with Walmart employees and other workers fighting for a living wage and
the right to unionize. He would be in the forefront of the battle for
strong gun controls and to thwart the influence of the National Rifle
Association. He would protest the abuses of Wall Street banks, standing
side-by-side with homeowners facing foreclosure and crusading for
tougher regulations against lending rip-offs. He would be calling for
dramatic cuts in the military budget to reinvest public dollars in jobs,
education and health care. He would surely be marching with immigrants
and their allies in support of comprehensive immigration reform. He
would be joining hands with activists seeking to reduce racial profiling
by police and ending the mass incarceration of young people. Like most
Americans in his day, King was homophobic, even though one of his
closest advisors, Bayard Rustin, was gay. But today, King would
undoubtedly stand with advocates of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage,
just as he challenged state laws banning interracial marriage.
Indeed,
King's views evolved over time. He entered the public stage with some
hesitation, reluctantly becoming the spokesperson for the Montgomery bus
boycott in 1955, at the age of 26. King began his activism in
Montgomery as a crusader against racial segregation, but the struggle
for civil rights radicalized him into a fighter for broader economic and
social justice and peace. Still, in reviewing King's life, we can see
that the seeds of his later radicalism were planted early.
King
was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929, the son of a prominent black
minister. Despite growing up in a solidly middle-class family, King saw
the widespread human suffering caused by the Depression, particularly in
the black community. In 1950, while in graduate school, he wrote an
essay describing the "anticapitalistic feelings" he experienced as a
youngster as a result of seeing unemployed people standing in
breadlines.
During King's first year at Morehouse College, civil
rights and labor activist A. Philip Randolph spoke on campus. Randolph
predicted that the near future would witness a global struggle that
would end white supremacy and capitalism. He urged the students to link
up with "the people in the shacks and the hovels," who, although "poor
in property," were "rich in spirit."
After graduating from
Morehouse in 1948, King studied theology at Crozer Theological Seminary
in Pennsylvania (where he read both Mohandas Gandhi and Karl Marx),
planning to follow in his father's footsteps and join the ministry. In
1955, he earned his doctorate from Boston University, where he studied
the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, the influential liberal theologian. While
in Boston, he told his girlfriend (and future wife), Coretta Scott,
that "a society based on making all the money you can and ignoring
people's needs is wrong."
When King moved to Montgomery to take
his first pulpit at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, he was full of
ideas but had no practical experience in politics or activism. But
history sneaked up on him. On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a
seamstress and veteran activist with the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), decided to resist the city's
segregation law by refusing to move to the back of the bus on her way
home from work. She was arrested. Two other long-term activists - E. D.
Nixon (leader of the NAACP and of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car
Porters) and Jo Ann Robinson (a professor at the all-black Alabama State
College and a leader of Montgomery's Women's Political Council) -
determined that Parks' arrest was a ripe opportunity for a one-day
boycott of the much-despised segregated bus system. Nixon and Robinson
asked black ministers to use their Sunday sermons to spread the word.
Some refused, but many others, including King, agreed.
The
boycott was very effective. Most black residents stayed off the buses.
Within days, the boycott leaders formed a new group, the Montgomery
Improvement Association (MIA). At Nixon's urging, they elected a
hesitant King as president, in large part because he was new in town and
not embroiled in the competition for congregants and visibility among
black ministers. He was also well educated and already a brilliant
orator, and thus would be a good public face for the protest movement.
The ministers differed over whether to call off the boycott after one
day but agreed to put the question up to a vote at a mass meeting.
That
night, 7,000 blacks crowded into (and stood outside) the Holt Street
Baptist Church. Inspired by King's words - "There comes a time when
people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression" -
they voted unanimously to continue the boycott. It lasted for 381 days
and resulted in the desegregation of the city's buses. During that time,
King honed his leadership skills, aided by advice from two veteran
pacifist organizers, Bayard Rustin and Rev. Glenn Smiley, who had been
sent to Montgomery by the pacifist group, Fellowship of Reconciliation.
During the boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, and he was
subjected to personal abuse. But - with the assistance of the new medium
of television - he emerged as a national figure.
In 1957, King
launched the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to help
spread the civil rights crusade to other cities. He helped lead local
campaigns in different cities, including Selma and Birmingham, Alabama,
where thousands marched to demand an end to segregation in defiance of
court injunctions forbidding any protests. While participating in these
protests, King also sought to keep the fractious civil rights movement
together, despite the rivalries among the NAACP, the Urban League, the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE) and SCLC. Between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six
million miles, spoke more than 2,500 times, and was arrested at least
20 times, always preaching the gospel of nonviolence. King attended
workshops at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which connected
him to a network of radicals, pacifists and union activists from around
the country whose ideas helped widen his political horizons.
It
is often forgotten that the August 1963 protest rally at the Lincoln
Memorial, where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, was
called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King was proud of
the civil rights movement's success in winning the passage of the Civil
Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year. But he
realized that neither law did much to provide better jobs or housing for
the masses of black poor in either the urban cities or the rural South.
"What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter," he asked,
"if you can't afford to buy a hamburger?"
King had hoped that the
bus boycott, sit-ins and other forms of civil disobedience would stir
white southern moderates, led by his fellow clergy, to see the
immorality of segregation and racism. His famous "Letter from a
Birmingham Jail," written in 1963, outlines King's strategy of using
nonviolent civil disobedience to force a response from the southern
white establishment and to generate sympathy and support among white
liberals and moderates. "The purpose of our direct-action program is to
create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the
door to negotiation," he wrote, and added, "We know through painful
experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it
must be demanded by the oppressed."
King eventually realized that
many white Americans had at least a psychological stake in perpetuating
racism. He began to recognize that racial segregation was devised not
only to oppress African Americans but also to keep working-class whites
from challenging their own oppression by letting them feel superior to
blacks. "The Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white
man Jim Crow," King said from the Capitol steps in Montgomery,
following the 1965 march from Selma. "And when his wrinkled stomach
cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate
Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off
he was, at least he was a white man, better than a black man."
When
King launched a civil rights campaign in Chicago in 1965, he was
shocked by the hatred and violence expressed by working-class whites as
he and his followers marched through the streets of segregated
neighborhoods in Chicago and its suburbs. He saw that the problem in
Chicago's ghetto was not legal segregation but "economic exploitation" -
slum housing, overpriced food and low-wage jobs - "because someone
profits from its existence."
These experiences led King to
develop a more radical outlook. King supported President Lyndon B.
Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty in 1964, but, like his
friend and ally Walter Reuther, the president of the United Auto
Workers, King thought that it did not go nearly far enough. As early as
October 1964, he called for a "gigantic Marshall Plan" for the poor -
black and white. Two months later, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in
Oslo, he observed that the United States could learn much from
Scandinavian "democratic socialism." He began talking openly about the
need to confront "class issues," which he described as "the gulf between
the haves and the have-nots."
In 1966 King confided to his staff:
You
can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without
talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums
without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really
tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with
folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means
that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we
are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a
better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a
democratic socialism.
Given this view, King was dismayed when
Malcolm X, SNCC's Stokely Carmichael, and others began advocating "black
power," which he warned would alienate white allies and undermine a
genuine interracial movement for economic justice.
King became
increasingly committed to building bridges between the civil rights and
labor movements. Invited to address the AFL-CIO's annual convention in
1961, King observed,
The labor movement did not diminish the
strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards
of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted
the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who today
attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.
In
a 1961 speech to the Negro American Labor Council, King proclaimed,
"Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a
better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's
children." Speaking to a meeting of Teamsters union shop stewards in
1967, King said, "Negroes are not the only poor in the nation. There are
nearly twice as many white poor as Negro, and therefore the struggle
against poverty is not involved solely with color or racial
discrimination but with elementary economic justice."
King's
growing critique of capitalism coincided with his views about American
imperialism. By 1965 he had turned against the Vietnam War, viewing it
as an economic as well as a moral tragedy. But he was initially
reluctant to speak out against the war. He understood that his fragile
working alliance with LBJ would be undone if he challenged the
president's leadership on the war. Although some of his close advisers
tried to discourage him, he nevertheless made the break in April 1967,
in a bold and prophetic speech at the Riverside Church in New York City,
entitled "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence." King called
America the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" and
linked the struggle for social justice with the struggle against
militarism. King argued that Vietnam was stealing precious resources
from domestic programs and that the Vietnam War was "an enemy of the
poor." In his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
(1967), King wrote, "The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy
the hopes and possibilities for a decent America."
In early 1968,
King told journalist David Halberstam, "For years I labored with the
idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change
here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think
you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution
of values."
King kept trying to build a broad movement for
economic justice that went beyond civil rights. In January, 1968, he
announced plans for a Poor People's Campaign, a series of protests to be
led by an interracial coalition of poor people and their allies among
the middle-class liberals, unions, religious organizations and other
progressive groups, to pressure the White House and Congress to expand
the War on Poverty. At King's request, socialist activist Michael
Harrington (author of The Other America, which helped inspire Presidents
Kennedy and Johnson to declare a war on poverty) drafted a Poor
People's Manifesto that outlined the campaign's goals. In April, King
was in Memphis, Tennessee, to help lend support to striking African
American garbage workers and to gain recognition for their union. There,
he was assassinated, at age 39, on April 4, a few months before the
first protest action of the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, DC.
President
Johnson utilized this national tragedy to urge Congress to quickly
enact the Fair Housing Act, legislation to ban racial discrimination in
housing, which King had strongly supported for two years. He signed the
bill a week after King's assassination.
The campaign for a
federal holiday in King's honor, spearheaded by Detroit Congressman John
Conyers, began soon after his murder, but it did not come up for a vote
in Congress until 1979, when it fell five votes short of the number
needed for passage. In 1981, with the help of singer Stevie Wonder and
other celebrities, supporters collected six million signatures on a
petition to Congress on behalf of a King holiday. Congress finally
passed legislation enacting the holiday in 1983, 15 years after King's
death. But even then, 90 members of the House (including
then-Congressmen John McCain of Arizona and Richard Shelby of Alabama,
both now in the Senate) voted against it. Senator Jesse Helms, a North
Carolina Republican, led an unsuccessful effort - supported by 21 other
senators, including current Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) - to block
its passage in the Senate.
The holiday was first observed on
January 20, 1986. In 1987, Arizona governor Evan Mecham rescinded King
Day as his first act in office, setting off a national boycott of the
state. Some states (including New Hampshire, which called it "Civil
Rights Day" from 1991 to 1999) insisted on calling the holiday by other
names. In 2000, South Carolina became the last state to make King Day a
paid holiday for all state employees.
In his final speech in
Memphis the night before he was killed, King told the crowd about a bomb
threat on his plane from Atlanta that morning, saying he knew that his
life was constantly in danger because of his political activism. "I
would like to live a long life," he said. "Longevity has its place. But
I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's
allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I've looked over, and I've
seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to
know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land."
We
haven't gotten there yet. But Dr. King is still with us in spirit. The
best way to honor his memory is to continue the struggle for human
dignity, workers' rights, racial equality, peace and social justice.
This
essay is adapted from the entry for Martin Luther King in Peter
Dreier's book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social
Justice Hall of Fame.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Peter Dreier Peter
Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair
of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental
College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th
Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (Nation Books, 2012).
Related Stories Martin Luther King's Vision of Justice By Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post Writers Group | Op-Ed
MLK Injustice Index 2013: Racism, Materialism and Militarism in the US By Bill Quigley, SpeakOut | Op-Ed
War Against the Homeless By Staff, Social Work Degree Guide | Infogragphic The Radical King
Martin Luther King Jr: A Lesson in Courage in the Face of Bigotry by Robert Covington, Jr. January 18, 2016 The Daily Banter
Dr. Martin Luther King burst on the national scene as the recognized leader of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955-1968, and what followed was a lifelong commitment to social, racial and human justice with relentless activism.
Dr. King helped a nation see its contradictions, inhumanity and hypocrisy in ways that have not been replicated by anyone since his assassination. Dr. King was so deeply American in his undying belief in the nation’s potential to live up to the best of its ideals, he remained undeterred by the constancy of death threats — physical, emotional and psychological abuse that he was subjected to by people who called themselves Americans. Defiantly, Dr. King exposed America’s toxic obsessions and caste systems that created the seeds of hatred, racial tensions and bigotry.
As the nation embarks on a day of observance, hopefully all of us will find our own way to honor his life. One of the ways that I’ve chosen to remember Dr. King involved the reading of some of his speeches and videos. As I read and looked at hours of material, I walked away in awe of his writing skills and gift of oratory.
One of the most clarifying speeches Dr. King has ever given on America’s decadence, occurred on August 31st, 1967. Dr. King was invited to speak to the National Conference of New Politics in Chicago, Illinois and he named his speech: “The Three Evils of Society”. The three evils in Dr. King’s address were: Racism, Materialism and Militarism. There are very few people who are able to unmask America’s sickness quite like Dr. King did.
Here are some excerpts in each category that remain as relevant today, as it was 49 years ago:
Materialism: “It is this moral lag in our thing-oriented society that blinds us to the human reality around us and encourages us in the greed and exploitation which creates the sector of poverty in the midst of wealth. Again we have diluted ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice, the fact is that Capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad. If Negroes and poor whites do not participate in the free flow of wealth within our economy, they will forever be poor, giving their energies, their talents and their limited funds to the consumer market but reaping few benefits and services in return. The way to end poverty is to end the exploitation of the poor, ensure them a fair share of the government services and the nation’s resources. I proposed recently that a national agency be established to provide employment for everyone needing it. Nothing is more socially inexcusable than unemployment in this age.”
Racism: “As early as 1906 W. E. B Dubois prophesized that the problem of the 20th century, would be the problem of the color line, now as we stand two-thirds into this crucial period of history we know full well that racism is still that hound of hell which dogs the tracks of our civilization. Ever since the birth of our nation, White America has had a Schizophrenic personality on the question of race, she has been torn between selves. A self in which she proudly profess the great principle of democracy and a self in which she madly practices the antithesis of democracy. This tragic duality has produced a strange indecisiveness and ambivalence toward the Negro, causing America to take a step backwards simultaneously with every step forward on the question of Racial Justice; to be at once attracted to the Negro and repelled by him, to love and to hate him. There has never been a solid, unified and determined thrust to make justice a reality for Afro-Americans.
The step backwards has a new name today, it is called the white backlash, but the white backlash is nothing new. It is the surfacing of old prejudices, hostilities and ambivalences that have always been there. It was caused neither by the cry of black power nor by the unfortunate recent wave of riots in our cities. The white backlash of today is rooted in the same problem that has characterized America ever since the black man landed in chains on the shores of this nation. This does not imply that all White Americans are racist, far from it. Many white people have, through a deep moral compulsion fought long and hard for racial justice nor does it mean that America has made no progress in her attempt to cure the body politic of the disease of racism or that the dogma of racism has been considerably modified in recent years. However for the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country, even today, is freedom and equality while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists. Racism can well be, that corrosive evil that will bring down the curtain on western civilization.
Militarism: Above all, the War in Vietnam, has revealed what Senator Fulbright calls, “our nations arrogance of power”. We are arrogant in professing to be concerned about the freedom of foreign nations while not setting our own house in order. Many of our Senators and Congressmen vote joyously to appropriate billions of dollars for the War in Vietnam and many of these same Senators and Congressmen vote loudly against a Fair Housing Bill to make it possible for a Negro veteran of Vietnam to purchase a decent home. We arm Negro soldiers to kill on foreign battlefields but offer little protection for their relatives from beatings and killings in our own South. We are willing to make a Negro 100% of a citizen in Warfare but reduce him to 50% of a citizen on American soil.”
Dr. King endured and suffered as an activist and messenger of peace, love and non-violence. But it was not in vain. His work, accomplishments, analysis and assessment of the United States resulted in Dr. King becoming one of the most iconic figures in American history. As we celebrate his life, Dr. King would want us to never forget why he died and what he died for.
A President and a King By Jelani Cobb The New Yorker
Illustration by Tom Bachtell
In June of 2009, when an aura of idealism still attended Barack Obama’s Presidency, he delivered a speech at Cairo University that was intended to recalibrate American relations in the region. He had already offered a qualified overture in his Inaugural Address—“We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist”—and the Cairo speech elucidated a vision of American soft power and democratic progress. Some listeners also noted a bit of historical jujitsu. In making a case for nonviolence in the region, the President remarked:
For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves, and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end.
Obama elided a few examples to make his argument: the more than six hundred thousand Civil War deaths in the United States; the well-documented though lesser-known history of armed black self-defense in the early twentieth century, which, in the eyes of many, served to make the nonviolent movement a palatable alternative; the armed resistance to apartheid that, for a time, counted even Nelson Mandela among its numbers. But fidelity to the historical record was not the key point.
There are more than six hundred and fifty streets named for Martin Luther King, Jr., in the United States, but, perhaps more significant, there are streets, parks, and monuments dedicated to him in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Senegal, South Africa, and Zambia—a reminder that not only American authority but also American contradictions play out on the world stage. Cairo represented a moment in which the nation’s history of racism, long its most obvious moral contradiction and the so-called Achilles’ heel of American foreign policy, was, in the hands of a black President, an element to be used to America’s advantage. Obama’s mere existence was a brief for a kind of American exceptionalism. The credibility of his words derived less from the office he held than from his affiliation with the nonviolent movement that had made it possible for him to attain it.
From the moment Obama emerged as a serious Presidential contender, he has been viewed as a symbol of the successes of King and the movement that he led. Early in the campaign, when some African-Americans still harbored doubts about Obama’s identity, he travelled to Selma to mark the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march and to talk explicitly about the ways in which the movement had made it possible for the union between his black Kenyan father and his white American mother to exist legally. His nomination, at the Democratic Convention in August of 2008, coincided with the forty-fifth anniversary of King’s “Dream” speech. After the election, cartoonists deployed King in all manner of celebratory endorsement, and, after the Inauguration, Obama placed a bust of King in the Oval Office. This week, he will deliver his sixth State of the Union address, as he did his first inaugural, a day after the holiday that commemorates King.
Yet six years in the White House have vastly complicated Obama’s relationship to King. They are two of the three African-Americans who have won the Nobel Peace Prize. (The first, Ralph Bunche, was awarded the prize in 1950, for negotiating a truce between Jews and Arabs in 1949.) When King accepted his award, in 1964, he began his speech by questioning his worthiness as a recipient, since the movement he led had not yet achieved interracial peace:
I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.
Obama opened his acceptance speech, in 2009, on a similarly self-effacing note, stating that he had barely begun his Presidency and his achievements were few. But then he departed from King’s reasoning. There is such a thing as just war, he said, under circumstances in which force is used in self-defense, is proportional to the threat, and, “whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.” He continued:
I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.
A moral crusader and a Commander-in-Chief grapple with different prerogatives. King was never tasked with national defense; Obama’s election was contingent on a belief that he could keep Americans safe. Some observers nevertheless find it difficult to square elements of Obama’s foreign policy—drone warfare and its civilian casualties—not only with King’s concept of civilization but with the President’s own criteria for just warfare. Cornel West railed against the decision to use King’s Bible at Obama’s second swearing-in. “The righteous indignation of a Martin Luther King,” he said, “becomes a moment in political calculation.” Still, the King who denounced the triple evils of militarism, racism, and materialism would likely hail this week’s address, in which the President is expected to touch upon normalizing relations with Cuba, immigration reform, and providing free education for students at community colleges—along with the Administration’s efforts to prevent voter suppression, the cause that animated the Selma campaign, fifty years ago.
Beneath all this lies the irony that, nearly six years after the Cairo speech, Obama is less able to deploy the moral capital of civil rights, at least in the Middle East, not only because he is now established as the face of American authority but also because many of the battles that King fought have still not been resolved. Racism remains an Achilles’ heel. The protests in Ferguson, New York, and beyond were watched by a global audience, and, as during the Cold War, America’s domestic troubles become fodder for a morally compromised foreign power to deflect attention from its own failings. Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei took to Twitter to highlight the seeming contradiction that such actions were taking place under a black President. He tweeted, “Racial discrimination’s still a dilemma in US. Still ppl are unsecure for having dark skins. The way police treat them confirms it.” In spite of Obama’s debt to the civil-rights movement, the ideal of American exceptionalism is only as valid as the standing of people who have just as often been seen as exceptions to America. ♦
Jelani Cobb has been contributing to The New Yorker and newyorker.com since 2013, and became a staff writer in 2015. He writes frequently about race, politics, history, and culture. His most recent book is “The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress.” He’s an associate professor of history, and the director of the Africana Studies Institute, at the University of Connecticut. He won the 2015 Sidney Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, for his columns on race, the police, and injustice.
Excerpt from the end of his speech delivered in Memphis, Tenn. --April 3,1968—THE DAY BEFORE Dr. King’s assassination at the age of 39:
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.-- "The Three Evils of Society":
An almost lost Dr. King speech, from the Pacifica Archives; this speech was given at the first and only National Conference for New Politics in 1967. It is an amazing speech which looks at American's three deadliest sins, War, Racism and Poverty
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Stanford - "The Other America” (1967):
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech at Stanford University on April 14, 1967. This speech is known as "The Other America".
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.-- "The Three Evils of Society"
An almost lost Dr. King speech, from the Pacifica Archives; this speech was given at the first and only National Conference for New Politics in 1967. It is an amazing speech which looks at American's three deadliest sins, War, Racism and Poverty
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech at Stanford University on April 14, 1967. This speech is known as "The Other America".
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3H978KlR20 Martin Luther King Jr. Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech: Martin Luther King Jr. held his Nobel acceptance speech in the auditorium of the University of Oslo in Norway on 10 December 1964.
Martin Luther King Jr., "The Drum Major Instinct" Sermon --- COMPLETE
"The Drum Major Instinct”
This was Dr. King’s last SERMON before being assassinated. Delivered to his congregation Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia on February 4, 1968. Not to be confused with his last SPEECH "I've Been to the Mountaintop" given two months later on April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Beginning at 35:07 MLK begins to dictate his own prophetic eulogy... a prophetic eulogy that goes on and ends as the final note of his final sermon.
There's an edited 19 minute version of this speech floating around. This version cuts out three segments as well as the final sentence.
Synopsis: King's "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, given on 4 February 1968, was an adaptation of the 1952 homily ''Drum-Major Instincts'' by J. Wallace Hamilton. King encouraged his congregation to seek greatness, but to do so through service and love. King concluded the sermon by imagining his own funeral, downplaying his famous achievements and emphasizing his heart to do right.
Mahalia Jackson sings at April 9, 1968 Martin Luther King Funeral:
For Immediate Release In Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Can We Make It to the "Promised Land?" King delivered his last speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop" on April 3, 1968 -
April 4th will be forty-six years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on a balcony in Memphis. Black America and people of goodwill in the nation and the world were stricken by grief, frustration and anger at the murder of this great man of justice and peace. Indeed, rebellions erupted in urban centers across the nation by people who could not fathom how an apostle of non-violence could be struck down so viciously and violently. It was clear that America was at yet another cross-road in the quest to achieve racial, economic and social justice.
Despite constant death threats, Dr. King never flinched in his determination that this nation should be made to live up to its creed. The night before he was murdered, he reluctantly mounted the podium at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis to once again urge his multitude of followers to remain hopeful, faithful and encouraged. He seemed to have a premonition of his demise, and yet he stared death in the face and proclaimed that he was not afraid. In the most memorable part of his oration he took the audience to the "mountaintop" with him and declared that he had "seen the promised land." Sensing that his life would be cut short he said, "I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land."
As we reflect on King's courage and optimism in the shadow of death, the question is can we make it to the Promised Land. Clearly Dr. King was speaking to the long suffering sons and daughters of Africa in America when he referenced "we as a people," but given his fervent belief in the promise of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, there is little doubt that he also believed that one day America as a nation must arrive at the Promised Land. King also knew that for the "promise" to be realized Black people and people of good will in the "beloved community" would have to struggle to achieve its fulfillment. There would be trials and tribulations because there were forces deeply committed to restricting economic and political democracy to an elite "few" to the exclusion of the "many" in this society.
As King peered over into the Promised Land, he saw a nation which embraced his concept of an Economic Bill of Rights modeled after Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" where every human being would have a decent standard of living: a land where no-one would lack for a job with a living wage or guaranteed annual income, quality affordable housing, healthcare and education. But, to get to the Promised Land, King was preparing a Poor People's Campaign to galvanize the "many" to struggle for an Economic Bill of Rights even in the face of the fierce resistance of the "few" at the commanding heights of capital and finance.
To get to the Promised Land, King also warned that the people, those who aspired to create the change must themselves undergo a change, a personal "revolution" that would translate into creating a just and humane society. Hence he proclaimed, "I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
The people must create a "moral movement" to get to the Promised Land and that movement cannot countenance a system incompatible with "person-oriented" values. Therefore, those who would get to the Promised Land must challenge and change systems of oppression and exploitation; they must advance a politics of social transformation. As King put it, "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that the edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
As we witness the calculated, mean-spirited assault on Blacks, labor, women and poor and working people by rightwing extremists, the explosive growth in mass incarceration within the prison-jail industrial complex and the ever increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, we must continue to be inspired by King's view from the mountaintop. Black people in particular must be dedicated to leading ourselves and the downtrodden/dispossessed to the Promised Land.
The Moral Monday Movement led by Rev. Dr. William Barber, President of the North Carolina NAACP embodies the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of the Promised Land and the road we must trod to get there. If King could stare death in the face and still keep his eye on the prize, then we desecrate his memory and violate his spirit if we shrink in the face of the current roadblocks and obstacles to the Promised Land. Too many or our ancestors suffered, struggled, bled, triumphed and passed the baton for this generation to succumb to hopelessness, apathy and indifference in the midst of a State of Emergency in America's "dark ghettos" - and the extremists' immoral assault on poor and working people.
As we memorialize the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, let us remember him on the mountaintop, looking over into the Promised Land, knowing that he would not get there, but courageously exhorting and inspiring us to continue the arduous but ultimately rewarding journey toward full freedom. We may not get there in our lifetime but King's message from the mountaintop was/is a clarion call for a cross - generational struggle for "a more perfect union" and the creation of the Promised Land. Our people and the "beloved community," will overcome some day!
Dr. Ron Daniels is President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and Distinguished Lecturer at York College City University of New York. His articles and essays also appear on the IBW website www.ibw21.org and www.northstarnews.com. To send a message, arrange media interviews or speaking engagements, Dr. Daniels can be reached via email at info@ibw21.org
MLK's "How Long, Not Long" Speech - Archival Footage: Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) delivers his famous "How Long, Not Long" speech on the steps of the state capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama .
1963 "Meet the Press" interview with Martin Luther King Jr. in honor of the March on Washington's 50th anniversary next week.
King appeared on the news program three days before his landmark "I Have a Dream" speech at the Aug. 28, 1963, civil rights march.
"'Meet the Press' Special Edition: Remembering the Dream" will air Sunday on 10 NBC-owned stations and on New England Cable News and a number of NBC affiliates. Most stations will air it immediately before or after the regularly scheduled episode of "Meet the Press" (check local listings).
The half-hour interview with King and NAACP leader Roy Wilkins will air in full, a half-century to the day after its original showing. It will be available online afterward.
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A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. Clayborne Carson, ed. New York: IPM/Warner Books 2001
Purchase Online From Amazon
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is known for being one of the greatest orators of the twentieth century, and perhaps in all of American history. In the 1950s and 1960s, his words led the Civil Rights Movement and helped change society. He is best known for helping achieve civil equality for African Americans, but these speeches--selected because they were each presented at a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement--show that his true goal was much larger than that: He hoped to achieve acceptance for all people, regardless of race or nationality.
This companion volume to A Knock at Midnight features the landmark speeches of his career, including: "I Have a Dream"; his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize; his eulogy for the young victims of the Birmingham church bombing; and "I've Been to the Mountaintop," the last speech he gave before his death.
Also featured in this text are introductions from world-renowned defenders of civil rights, who, reflecting on their own experiences, explain how they believe Dr. King's words can be applied in the twenty-first century. They include Ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, George McGovern, Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, Senator Edward Kennedy, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Dorothy Height, Reverend Leon Sullivan, the Dalai Lama, and Reverend Walter Fauntroy.
Contents:
5 Dec 1955 MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church 7 April 1957 "The Birth of a New Nation," Sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church 17 May 1957 "Give Us the Ballot," Address at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom 23 June 1963 Speech at the Great March on Detroit 28 Aug 1963 "I Have a Dream," Address at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
18 Sept 1963 "Eulogy for the Martyred Children" 10 Dec 1964 Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony 25 March 1965 "Our God Is Marching On!" 4 April 1967 "Beyond Vietnam"
વિયેતનામ બિયોન્ડ ("Beyond Vietnam" in Gujarati)
16 Aug 1967 "Where Do We Go From Here?" 3 April 1968 "I've Been to the Mountaintop"
As usual Chris Hedges, like Henry Giroux, tells the whole truth and nothing but while we sit around muttering and waiting for papier mache messiahs like the President and their zombie acolytes to "save us" from ourselves. It's way past time to run far away from our collective delusions and fight for something that is far more important and necessary than ANY politician's "status" or "legacy”…and pass the word. Thanks Chris...
Kofi
Rise of the New Black Radicals April 26, 2015 By Chris Hedges Truthdig
A protester raises his fist outside the Baltimore Police Department’s Western District police station during a march and vigil for Freddie Gray last Tuesday. Gray died of a spinal injury April 19 while he was in police custody. (AP / Patrick Semansky)
The almost daily murders of young black men and women by police in the United States—a crisis undiminished by the protests of groups such as Black Lives Matter and by the empty rhetoric of black political elites—have given birth to a new young black militant.
This militant, rising off the bloody streets of cities such as Ferguson, Mo., understands that the beast is not simply white supremacy, chronic poverty and the many faces of racism but the destructive energy of corporate capitalism. This militant has given up on electoral politics, the courts and legislative reform, loathes the corporate press and rejects established black leaders such as Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Michael Eric Dyson. This militant believes it is only in the streets and in acts of civil disobedience that change is possible. And given the refusal of the corporate state to address the mounting suffering of the poor and working poor, draconian state repression and indiscriminate use of lethal state violence against unarmed people of color, I think the new black radical is right. It will be a long, hot and violent summer.
The world’s hundreds of millions of disenfranchised youths—in America this group is dominated by the black and brown underclass—come out of the surplus labor created by our system of corporate neofeudalism. These young men and women have been discarded as human refuse and are preyed upon by a legal system that criminalizes poverty. In the United States they constitute the bulk of the 2.3 million human beings locked in jails and prisons. The discontent in Ferguson, Athens, Cairo, Madrid and Ayotzinapa is one discontent. And the emerging revolt, although it comes in many colors, speaks many languages and has many belief systems, is united around a common enemy. Bonds of solidarity and consciousness are swiftly uniting the wretched of the earth against our corporate masters.
Corporate power, which knows what is coming, has put in place sophisticated systems of control that include militarized police, elaborate propaganda campaigns that seek to make us fearful and therefore passive, wholesale surveillance of every citizen and a court system that has stripped legal protection from the poor and any who dissent. The masses are to be kept in bondage. But the masses, especially the young, understand the game. There is a word for what is bubbling up from below—revolution. It can’t begin soon enough.
The global leadership for this revolt comes not from the institutions of privilege, elite universities where ambitious and self-centered young men and women jockey to become part of the ruling 1 percent, but from the squalid internal colonies that house the poor and usually people of color. The next great revolutionary in America won’t look like Thomas Jefferson. He or she will look like Lupe Fiasco.
T-Dubb-O is a hip-hop artist from St. Louis. He is one of the founders, along with Tef Poe, Tory Russell, Tara Thompson and Rika Tyler, of Hands Up United. The organization was formed in the wake of the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson. It has built close alliances with radical organizations in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin American, in Europe and in Palestine.
“I honestly think it’s going to be worse than last year, this summer,” T-Dubb-O said when I met with him and Tyler at Princeton University, where they had gone to speak to students. “People have become more radical,” he said. “They’ve realized the power that they have. They’re no longer afraid of the police, the state, but also you have a police and a military force that’s been training for a year to deal with this type of circumstance. So I honestly think this summer is gonna be worse. More violence from the police, and this time you won’t have a group of people who is just gonna sit there and let it happen to ’em—you’re gonna have people that are actually gonna fight back instead of just continue to be peaceful protesters. Right now everybody is just on edge. I mean, it’s the same situation we was in before Mike Brown. People that don’t have jobs, there’s crime everywhere, there’s drugs everywhere, there’s predator policing. It’s the same circumstances, it’s just no cameras.”
“In my city every day, police is pulling somebody over, harassing them, extorting them,” he said. “Because that’s what it is—it’s legal extortion. When a government is making 30 to 40 percent of their yearly budget off of tickets, fines and imprisonment, it’s extortion. It’s the same thing the mob did in the ’20s. So we fight. We can’t go back to normal lives. We get followed, harassed, death threats, phones tapped, social media watched, they hack into our emails, hack into our social media account, we all got FBI files. They know we here right now. So I mean it’s not a game, but it’s either continue to deal with not being able to just live like a regular person, and dream, and have an opportunity, or get up and do something about it. And we decided to do something.”
Tyler said she was propelled into the movement by seeing the body of Michael Brown, which the Ferguson police left lying in the street for more than four hours.
“I went to Canfield [Drive, where Brown was killed],” she said when we spoke. “I saw the body. I saw the blood. I just broke down. And ever since then I’ve just been out there [as an activist] every day.”
“They left [Brown] in the street for four and a half hours in the hot sun on concrete, just for display,” she said. “That reminded me of a modern-day lynching. Because you know, they used to lynch slaves and then have it displayed. And that’s basically showing us that this system is not built for us. It made me wake up a little bit more.”
“Just envision a debtor’s prison being run by a collusion between city officials, police and court judges, who treated our community like an ATM machine,” Tyler said. “Because that’s all they did. Ferguson is in St. Louis County. It’s 21,000 people living in 8,100 households. So it’s a small town. Sixty-seven percent of the residents are African-American. Twenty-two percent live below poverty level. A total of $2.6 million [were paid in fines to city officials, the courts and the police] in 2013. The Ferguson Municipal Court disposed of 24,532 warrants and 12,018 cases. That’s about three warrants per household. One and a half cases for each household. You don’t get $321 in fines and fees and three warrants per household from an average crime rate. You get numbers like this from racist bullshit, arrests from jaywalking, and constant low-level harassment involving traffic stops, court appearances, high fines and the threat of jail for failure to pay.”
“For an example,” she went on, “I got pulled over. I turned a left [illegally] and my car was searched. I was met with three different officers, two detectives. I got a traffic ticket. I had a ticket because I didn’t have my license on me. So I had a ticket for not having my license, and then I got a ticket from turning the wrong way. I did not go to court because I was out of town. However, I called them and told them I will not appear to court and my lawyer would handle it from there. I got a letter in the mail that said failure to appear to court, and they have a warrant out for my arrest. They’re threatening to take my license and suspend it because I didn’t appear to court. So these are just the things that had happened in St. Louis right now. You can get a ticket from walking across the street, or a ticket from not cutting your grass, and then you’re stuck in this system that they put us in, that is oppressed, and keeps us oppressed.”
“I was arrested when I was pregnant, I was 37 weeks and I was arrested in St. Charles County by four white officers,” she said. “They took me into custody when I had this big-ass stomach. And I’m like, I’m pregnant. I had a traffic ticket for parking in the wrong meter. And they wrote me a ticket and I never paid it, so they took me. I had a warrant out for my arrest. I sat in jail, pregnant, had my baby a week early because I was stressed out and crying my eyes out in jail.”
“No person should have to go through this,” T-Dubb-O said, “whether it’s in America, Palestine, Mexico, Brazil, Canada. Nobody should have to go through this. You look at a bunch of young people [in Ferguson], their age ranges anywhere from 12 to 28 or 29, that went against the most powerful military force in this world. That’s pretty much what happened. … That’s not what’s explained, but that’s what it was. It was tanks on every corner, our phones tapped, they follow us. Every day we was out there we thought we were gonna die. At one point in time they said they were gonna kill us. ‘We’re not shooting rubber bullets tonight, we’re shooting live ammunition.’ And these are the things that you don’t see on the news. It was just because we was tired of being treated as less than people. Just for opportunity to be able to walk the streets and live and breathe and do what everybody else does. And that’s pretty much what we was fighting for. I mean, the level of oppression, it’s kind of hard to fathom, and believe that it’s actually true in America, especially the middle of America. But it’s real, where you have people that are judged off the neighborhoods they come from and the color of their skin and they’re denied certain opportunities.”
“In St. Louis if you’ve been arrested and you’re facing a misdemeanor or felony charges, you’re not allowed a Pell Grant to go to college,” he said. “So if you can’t afford to pay to go to college you’re just stuck. If you’re on probation and you’re trying to get a job, it’s a right-to-work state, they have the right to deny you employment because of your past. They don’t have to give you an opportunity to work. Where do they leave you, back in the same system that puts you in the same position where you made the first mistake. It’s all set up like this.”
“I’ve been tear-gassed six times,” Tyler said. “I’ve been put on the car, had different guns to my head. I’ve been shot at with rubber bullets, live ammo, wooden bullets, bean bag bullets, sound cannons, everything you can think of. I’ve went up against militarized police, and they did different things like a five-second rule, like I would get arrested if I stood still for longer than five seconds. I would get arrested if I didn’t walk longer than five seconds. It was just different things. They don’t wear their name badges. They don’t tell us who they are. They’re not transparent at all. They harass us. Women have been hogtied, beaten. I got arrested for standing on the sidewalk, just recording them.”
“He asked me did I vote for him,” he said, “I told him no. I didn’t vote for him either time, because I didn’t want to vote for him just because he was black. I felt like that would have been shallow on my end. Because he’s never honestly spoken and touched and said he was going to do anything for my community or the issues that we face on a daily basis, so why would I vote for somebody like that, whether you white, black, male, female, so on and so forth?”
As president he is proof that the system works, Obama told T-Dubb-O. The hip-hop artist said this statement shows how out of touch Obama is with the reality faced by poor people of color.
“I think D.C. is a perfect example of what America is,” he said. “You have this big white house representing the government, that was built by slaves, that’s beautiful, excellent manicured lawns, and right outside the gate you have 50 homeless people sleeping in a park. Right outside of the gate of the White House. That perfectly describes America.”
“The difference between us and those leaders is that we aren’t doing it for fame, we aren’t doing it for political gain, we aren’t doing it for money,” he said, speaking of Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, Dyson and the other establishment black leaders. “We’re doing it because every day that we’ve lived we’ve been denied normal human rights, and we could have lost our life. We don’t believe those leaders are properly representing our community. Because they are no longer a part of the community, they don’t speak for the community, and honestly they don’t do much for it. They do some things, because they have to, being 501(c)3s, but they don’t speak for the people.”
Jackson and Sharpton have been heckled by crowds in Ferguson and told to leave, along with crews from CNN. Tyler described CNN and other major news outlets, which steadfastly parrot back the official narrative, as “worse than politicians, worse than police.”
“So people in Ferguson is basically like, fuck Al Sharpton, and fuck Jesse Jackson, for real,” Tyler said. “And that’s the best way I can put it, for real, because they are co-opted, first off. They had their own movement. They were co-opted. Their movement got destroyed. Now they want to come to the new leaders and try to come in our movement and give guidance and stuff, but it’s a totally different generation. They marched with suits and ties and sung ‘Kumbaya’ and stuff. It’s people out there that look like him,” she said, motioning to T-Dubb-O, “shirtless, tattoos, like Bloods, Crips, whatever, out there just mad, because they was pissed off and they was passionate about it.”
“Jesse Jackson came, actually we were in the middle of a prayer for Michael Brown’s mother, and we were at the memorial site in Canfield Apartments, where he was killed and laid down in the street for four and a half hours,” Tyler said. “Everyone has their heads bowed and he comes over and starts shouting ‘No justice, no peace’ in the middle of a prayer. So instantly the community is pissed the fuck off—like who the hell is this? I finally recognized his face. I went over to him, because the guys were ready to fight him. Like, you don’t come over here and, this mother’s grieving, we’re all upset, and break up our prayer. And he’s all like ‘No justice, no peace!’ He has his bullhorn, and his sign and everything, just for a photo op. So I went over and I said to him, you probably should leave, because they’re really angry and they’re gonna get you out of here. And he was like ‘No justice, no peace!’ and he just kept chanting. So I moved out of the way, and the dudes told him, like ‘Hey bro, if you don’t back the fuck up we’re gonna make you leave.’ And he’s like, ‘This is what’s wrong with us!’ and ‘generational divide!’ and everything like that. And you know the community wasn’t taking for it, so he got scared, and him and the people he came with, like his best-dressed suit on and everything, and everybody was out there shirtless, or tank tops, or just in their normal clothes. And he came out there with a cameraman and everything, like this is just a frenzy or a freaking parade or something to film. So people were pissed off and he instantly left, and he hasn’t really been back since.”
“Every national organization you can think of is in St. Louis, Mo.,” T-Dubb-O said. “We have Urban League. We have the NAACP. We have all these different organizations. But yet for the last two decades we’ve always had one of the three top murder rates, one of the three highest crime rates. Poverty level is crazy, unemployment, you have all these mission statements on your website saying you do this and you do that, yet those programs aren’t available in our city. But you have offices here. You’re getting grants. But you’re not doing anything. And the community sees that now. So it’s gonna come a point in time to where all 501(c)3s, and all organizations, have to actually be active in the communities that they’re representing.”
The young Ferguson activists respect only the few national black leaders who do not try to speak for the movement or use the unrest as a media backdrop to promote themselves. Among those they admire is Cornel West.
“He was kind of like a big brother or father of the movement,” Tyler said of West. “Instead of stepping up, he always brought me with him. He always uplifted us. They’ll try to put him in front of the camera, he’d always bring somebody with him. He would say, ‘These are the people, these are the new leaders of the world, and you guys need to talk to them.’ He’s very transparent. He always voices and uplifts our name.”
The activists are preparing for increased unrest. And they are preparing for increased state repression and violence.
“As far as politics,” T-Dubb-O said, “it’s going to go either one of two ways. Right now we have a window that’s closing pretty fast, to where we can either re-create this system for something that’s going to actually be equal for all people, or they’re going to re-create the system to where we’ll never be able to punch it in the mouth like we did in Ferguson again.”
“We don’t know what it’s gonna look like, honestly,” he said of the coming unrest. “It’s been legal to kill a black man in this country. Just since Mike Brown, 11 more people has been killed by police in St. Louis alone, one being a woman who was raped then hung in jail. But none of the other murders got national coverage. It was just two standoffs with police yesterday. So I mean, we don’t know what that’s going to look like. We know we’re dedicated. We’re going to continue to fight. It’s going to take full-fledged revolution to make a change. The worst of the worst would be civil war. That’s just where my mind is.”
“I don’t see them pulling back,” he said of the state and its security forces. “They have no problem killing people. They have no problem shooting gas at babies, pregnant people, old people. They don’t have an issue with it. And our politicians are just standing around with their arms folded.”
“As long as the powers that be are in control, the oppression isn’t going to go anywhere,” he said. “It’s really going to take people to unite worldwide, not just in America, not just in St. Louis, not just in one particular city or state. It’s gonna have to be people identifying their struggles with each other worldwide, internationally, and say enough is enough. That’s the only way oppression will ever leave.”
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Columnist Violence in Baltimore by Charles M. Blow April 29, 2015 New York Times
Daquan Green, 17, in front of a phalanx of Baltimore police officers standing guard near the CVS pharmacy that was set on fire. Credit Andrew Burton/Getty Images North America
This week, Baltimore was engulfed in violent revolt as citizens took to the street in the wake of the mysterious and disturbing death of Freddie Gray after he’d been taken into police custody.
Projectiles were thrown. Stores were looted and some set ablaze. Police officers were injured.
It was ugly.
And in that moment, America was again forced to turn its face toward its forsaken and ask tough questions and attempt to answer a few.
Even Hillary Clinton stepped into the fray Wednesday, saying:
“We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America. There is something profoundly wrong when African-American men are still far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than are meted out to their white counterparts.” Related coverage by Charles M. Blow:
Politics, public opinion and social justice. ‘Lynch Mob’: Misuse of Language APR 27 Has the N.R.A. Won? APR 20 Woe of White Men, Again? APR 16 Walter Scott Is Not on Trial APR 13 In South Carolina, Shot in the Back as He Ran APR 8
This was an aggressive speech by Clinton and a major departure from her 2008 run, when, after an embarrassing loss to Barack Obama in the Iowa caucuses, she went on the attack in New Hampshire, with ABC News reporting it this way:
“While the senator was vague, her campaign pointed out to ABC News examples of Obama’s liberal positions, including his 2004 statement to abolish mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes.”
On Tuesday, the day before his wife’s speech, Bill Clinton had weighed in. As the Guardian reported:
“Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has called for an end to mass incarceration, admitting that changes in penal policy that happened largely under his watch put ‘too many people in prison and for too long’ and ‘overshot the mark.’”
The Guardian goes on to explain:
“In 1994 Clinton championed a crime bill that laid down several of the foundations of the country’s current mass incarceration malaise. Vowing to be ‘tough on crime’ — a quality that had previously been more closely associated with the Republicans and which Clinton adopted under his ‘triangulation’ ploy — he created incentives to individual states to build more prisons, to put more people behind bars and to keep them there for longer. His also presided over the introduction of a federal three-strikes law that brought in long sentences for habitual offenders.”
Hillary Clinton’s speech on Wednesday was indeed a remarkable and audacious one for the candidate, and went far further than many of her Republican rivals would dare to go (although there is growing bipartisan consensus around prison reform), but the unacknowledged and unexplained shift in the middle of a heated moment could quite reasonably raise doubts of sincerity or commitment to execution.
The black community in America has been betrayed by Democrats and Republicans alike — it has been betrayed by America itself. Therefore, it can be hard to accept at face value any promises made or policies articulated. History demonstrates that too many forked tongues have delivered too many betrayed covenants.
As James Baldwin put it in his essay “Journey to Atlanta”:
“Of all Americans, Negroes distrust politicians most, or more accurately, they have been best trained to expect nothing from them; more than other Americans, they are always aware of the enormous gap between election promises and their daily lives.” Continue reading the main story
Baldwin continued:
“It is true that the promises excite them, but this is not because they are taken as proof of good intentions. They are the proof of something more concrete than intentions: that the Negro situation is not static, that changes have occurred, and are occurring and will occur — this, in spite of the daily, dead-end monotony. It is this daily, dead-end monotony, though, as well as the wise desire not to be betrayed by too much hoping, which causes them to look on politicians with such an extraordinarily disenchanted eye.”
It is this disenchantment, as well as the steady beat of black bodies falling, the constant murmur of black pain and the incessant sting of black subjugation that contributed to the conflagration of rage this week in Baltimore.
You could easily argue that that rage was misdirected, that most of the harm done was to the social fabric and the civil and economic interests in the very neighborhoods that most lack them. You would be right.
But misdirected rage is not necessarily illegitimate rage.
Some might even contextualize the idea of misdirection.
The activist Deray McKesson argued this week about the violence that erupted in Baltimore: “I don’t have to condone it to understand it.”
Indeed, The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates argued quite convincingly in November that violent revolt has often been the catalyst for change in this country and that nonviolence, at least in part, draws its power from the untenable alternative of violence.
None of this promotes violence as a tactic, but rather is a fuller understanding of the contradictions of America’s current, incessant appeals for peace.
We can’t roundly condemn violent revolt now while ignoring the violent revolts that have littered this country’s history.
We can’t rush to label violent protesters as “thugs” while reserving judgment about the violence of police killings until a full investigation has been completed and all the facts are in.
We can’t condemn explosions of frustration born of generations of marginalization and oppression while paying only passing glances to similar explosions of frustration over the inanity of a sports team’s victory or loss or a gathering for a pumpkin festival.
Nonviolence, as a strategy, hinges on faith: It is a faith in ultimate moral rectitude and the perfectibility of systems of power.
But that faith can be hard to find in communities that see systems of power in which they feel they have no stake and an absence of moral courage on the part of the powerful to expand the franchise.
It has been my experience that people who feel no investment in systems of power — no belief that they have access to that power and that that power will treat them fairly — are the ones most likely to attack those systems with whatever power they think they have.
The time that any population will silently endure suffering is term-limited and the end of that term is unpredictable, often set by a moment of trauma that pushes a simmering discontent over into civil disobedience.
And, in those moments, America feigns shock and disbelief. Where did this anger come from? How can we quickly restore calm? How do we instantly start to heal?
That is because America likes to hide its sins. That is because it wants its disaffected, dispossessed and disenfranchised to use the door under the steps. That is because America sees its underclass as some sort of infinity sponge: capable of quietly absorbing disadvantage, neglect and oppression forever for the greater good of superficial calm and illusory order. And expected to do so.
No one of good conscience and sound judgment desires violence or would ever advocate for it. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it, “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.”
But King is not the only person worthy of quoting here. There is also the quote often attributed to Zora Neale Hurston: “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
(1817-1895)
CHARLES M. BLOW
(b. 1970)
THE CONTEXT OF HISTORY: Frederick Douglass in 1857 and Charles M. Blow in 2015
"The time that any population will silently endure suffering is
term-limited and the end of that term is unpredictable, often set by a
moment of trauma that pushes a simmering discontent over into civil
disobedience.
And, in those
moments, America feigns shock and disbelief. Where did this anger come
from? How can we quickly restore calm? How do we instantly start to
heal?
That is because America likes to hide its sins. That is
because it wants its disaffected, dispossessed and disenfranchised to
use the door under the steps. That is because America sees its
underclass as some sort of infinity sponge: capable of quietly absorbing
disadvantage, neglect and oppression forever for the greater good of
superficial calm and illusory order. And expected to do so”
—Charles M. Blow, April 29, 2015
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never
will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have
found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed
upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either
words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the
endurance of those whom they oppress.”
"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against."
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963)
"There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
"Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society."
"A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization."
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
"There's no other purpose, so far as I'm concerned, for us except to reflect the times, the situations around us and the things we're able to say through our art, the things that millions of people can't say. I think that's the function of an artist and, of course, those of us who are lucky leave a legacy so that when we're dead, we also live on. That's people like Billie Holiday and I hope that I will be that lucky, but meanwhile, the function, so far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times, whatever that might be."
Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973)
"Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children ....Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories..." .
Angela Davis (b. 1944)
"The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?”
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
“Jazz is the freest musical expression we have yet seen. To me, then, jazz means simply freedom of musical speech! And it is precisely because of this freedom that so many varied forms of jazz exist. The important thing to remember, however, is that not one of these forms represents jazz by itself. Jazz simply means the freedom to have many forms.”
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)
"Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is."
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” --August 3, 1857
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)
“Musical categories don’t mean anything unless we talk about the actual specific acts that people go through to make music, how one speaks, dances, dresses, moves, thinks, makes love...all these things. We begin with a sound and then say, what is the function of that sound, what is determining the procedures of that sound? Then we can talk about how it motivates or regenerates itself, and that’s where we have tradition.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986)
"Strong people don't need strong leaders"
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)
"The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."
John Coltrane (1926-1967)
"I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good."
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
"Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around."
C.L.R. James (1901-1989)
"All development takes place by means of self-movement, not organization by external forces. It is within the organism itself (i.e. within the society) that there must be realized new motives, new possibilities."
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
"Now, political education means opening minds, awakening them, and allowing the birth of their intelligence as [Aime] Cesaire said, it is 'to invent souls.' To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them."
Edward Said (1935-2003)
“I take criticism so seriously as to believe that, even in the midst of a battle in which one is unmistakably on one side against another, there should be criticism, because there must be critical consciousness if there are to be issues, problems, values, even lives to be fought for."
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. There must be pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.”
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager."
Kofi Natambu, editor of The Panopticon Review, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He is the author of a biography MALCOLM X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: THE MELODY NEVER STOPS (Past Tents Press) and INTERVALS (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of SOLID GROUND: A NEW WORLD JOURNAL, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology NOSTALGIA FOR THE PRESENT (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
