This is the real man that America seeks to honor tomorrow:
Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.
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.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.
-- Martin Luther King, Riverside Church, April 4, 1967.
There really is no doubt that Dr. King -- who might have turned 83 today had he not been cut down by an assassin -- would have been at the head of the line with the others who flooded back into Zuccotti Park last week after the NYPD took down the barriers. The real Martin Luther King would have been proud at some of America's progress since he died -- the election of the first black president being one part of that. But he would have been appalled by so much else in American life in 2012, including the right-wing assault on basic voting rights as well as the destruction of the American middle class, even as many fight to leave the sacred cow that is the military-industrial complex unscathed.
Tomorrow, millions of Americans will volunteer and do good works in Dr. King's name, and that is a wonderful and highly admirable thing. But that is not the hard part. That will have to take place later, in the streets of Washington and Lower Manhattan and Charlotte and Tampa, and the work will carry great risk but also a mightier potential reward -- an America that is not father from but closer to Dr. King's dream in January 2013.
(Programming note: I'll be on furlough for the next week, so talk amongst yourselves, and I'll catch you again on the other side.)
Thank you, Will. MLK describes a hard road to follow, but that is where we ought to be going.— Archimedes
Comment removed.- Dr. King was a great man and reformer. I believe he would be mortified at the race hustlers and charlatans (Jesse Jackson, Charlie Rangel,Al Sharpton) that have been pushed to the fore by the MSM as leaders of his movement. As Bill.Atkins said, had he been leading OWS it would have been more dignified, although still misguided.They should have occupied congress.— georgel
- "The orthodox attempt to explain the divinity of Jesus in terms of an inherent metaphysical substance within him seems to me quite inadequate. To say that the Christ, whose example of living we are bid to follow, is divine in an ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental. To invest this Christ with such supernatural qualities makes the rejoinder: 'Oh, well, he had a better chance for that kind of life than we can possibly have ...' So that the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in my mind quite readily denied. The significance of the divinity of Christ lies in the fact that his achievement is prophetic and promissory for every other true son of man who is willing to submit his will to the will and spirit of God. Christ was to be only the prototype of one among many brothers. The appearance of such a person, more divine and more human than any other, and in closest unity at once with God and man, is the most significant and hopeful event in human history. This divine quality or this unity with God was not something thrust upon Jesus from above, but it was a definite achievement through the process of moral struggle and self-abnegation." - MLK— HandNik
Cute but not quite accurate in light of the kids who sat at the lunch counters.
There is February, June-Teenth and of course MLK but I was always partial to April 14th.
- That assassin's bullet killed any chance for improvement in race relations for the last few decades. It was so important to the aforementioned charlatans to give the appearance of a connection with King that the message wasn't allowed to evolve. So now, over forty years later, the whiny "I'm a victim" mantra remains strong in the black communities.— 2ndNlong
- Sorry Will, MLK's movement had meaning and kept going even after his death. The current occupiers (who you seem to love - is it the book you are writing?) movement is dead. The comparison between the two demonstrates one was legetimate and the other a fraud.— cb54
- The "real" Martin Luther King would have done this, the "real" Martin Luther King would have done that... does anyone else wince when these self annointed MLK clairvoyants tell us how we'd all be better off by living according to their interpretation of MLK's words?— michael_b
- "There comes a time when any system must be reevaluated. 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." -- Martin Luther King Jr., May 1965— HandNik
- How'd that work out for Cuba? — RG
- It's working in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, etc. But of course you know this already.
— Mr_Cool - It's working in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, etc. But of course you know this already. — Mr_Cool
- I don't remember ever reading that MLK sat in his own urine.— jmc
- "who flooded back into Zuccotti Park last week after the NYPD took down the barriers."
300 people went back. What a flood, especially in a city of 8 million. I know you are trying to sell your book, but its time to move on. Focus on civili liberties and people will listen.— RG - The anti-occupy crowd seem to be fixated on urine and excrement. That is not shocking, given the amount they ingest from the RNC, Fox and Rush. I think MLK would be pleased with many things about 2012 America but unhappy with others. Imagine that a non-extreme point of view. Zbigniew Brzezinski (you know that well known radical socialist) identifies growing income disparity as one of the six biggest threats facing the US today. So a salute to MLK; a man who understood that a country that begins with Locke's natural rights of life liberty and property can not survive long term unless "property"--a decent living-- is available to anybody willing to work. This is not the case lately as wages for non college educated males in particular have been flat or fallen over the last 40 yrs.— mick-of-the-moment
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
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