live to see the day

I keep hearing folks say they never thought they'd live the day to see a black man be president. Not in their lifetime. I don't understand this. It's as though they never really believed the speeches, the music, or the possibility. Here are but a few examples of words that spoke to a different day, and upon hearing them, one came to believe.

When the thunder of opression roars and crackles, I'll be there
When those who would be free are wearing shackles, I'll be there
For the day is gonna come when they'll throw away their chains
Lift their heads and raise their arms for the struggle that remains
And let me tell you
Let me tell you
Let me tell you
Let me tell you, I'll be there-
--Phil Ochs, I'll Be There

---------------

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.--Dr. ML King, Beyond Vietnam, 4 April 1967, Clergy and Laity Concerned, Riverside Church, New York City

And then later in the same speech, King said,

We must rapidly begin...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, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

----

For every scar on a wall
There's a hole in someone's heart
Where a loved one's memory lives

In the flash of this moment
You're the best of what we are --
Don't let them stop you now
Nicaragua
--Bruce Cockburn, Nigaragua

----

(Brothers and sisters, hey)
Listen if you're missin' y'all
Swingin' while I'm singin'
Givin' whatcha gettin'
Knowin' what I know
While the Black bands sweatin'
And the rhythm rhymes rollin'
Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
--Public Enemy, Fight the Power

now is the time

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's assassination. King was in Memphis that week at the bequest of black sanitation workers who were on strike at the time. Among the things they were striking for was the right to be paid the same as white sanitation workers who did the same job.

Earlier in the year King had begun to intertwine his views on race, economic justice, and the Vietnam War into a Poor People's Campaign designed to rebuild American cities with jobs, equality, and peace. And the desperate need for the nation to comfort it's shortcomings.

Forty years later we stand in some ways at similar crossroads. The nation is going broke fighting a war that sounds oddly similar to King's appraisal of the Vietnam War, for which he was excoriated in the mainstream press and vilified by racists.

Now is the time.

King was one of the greatest orators that America has ever produced, if not the greatest. His words jolted a generation to stand for change and for that King won the Nobel Peace Prize, the youngest person ever to receive the award.

I remember reading King's Letter from Birmingham Jail in high school. It was standard reading in English texts on how to write a persuasive essay.

What is rarely remembered about King's letter is that it was from one member of the clergy to other members. King was responding to a group of white clergymen who'd written a letter suggesting that although the case of racial equality was a just one, it was really a matter for the courts to decide.

Christians have waited for thousands of years, the white clergy had written, you should be happy to wait for the outcome of the courts, chiding King as being too bold for organizing civil rights protests. King said no. To wait was immoral.

Now is the time.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

King argued quite forcefully and gracefully, including words of those who had informed the white clergy, the Apostle Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, Jesus, and Martin Luther that everyone should, and must stand against injustice. Religious leaders must stand at the forefront and if they will not, others should push them aside and take the reigns. King took the clergymen to task asking:

"What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

And King voiced words that sound all too familiar today.

Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust. Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.

Now is the time.

Image: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X waiting for press conference, March 26, 1963, Marion S. Trikosko, Library of Congress collection.

elsewhere:
letter from birmingham jail

hillary doesn't dream in color

The Grand Old Party is in trouble. Dems are lining up, joined by Independents, and lines are stretching out the door to hear the candidates. Why? The Republicans basically offer two choices. More of the same ineptitude or a return to a Reaganese Presidential style that's essentially 25 years old. Think the world has changed just a little over 25 years? How about just the last 7?

The median age in the US is about 35 years which would mean the average voter was 12 years old during the midpoint of the Reagan Presidency and those same voters, have more respect for Steven Colbert and John Stewart than President Bush. For that matter, so do I.

Lest everyone, including myself, dare to begin to jump up and down with glee on the grave of the Republican Party, let's recall, the fat cat has yet to sing.
It's likely the party still has a few tricks left in their hand and if some of the cards are a little dirty, sigh....that's the way politics is played. At least by those who consider the win to be more important than the governance.

People are sick to death of the crap that comes out of Washington. Most lunchroom conversations are far more probing that the mild pratter that comes from the made-for-television debates. It's not just the candidates that need to be taken to task, it's the media that asks either soft-boiled questions, poll-based questions, or just plain dumb ones. I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul, but he should have throttled Carl Cameron for asking such a pointedly subjective question designed to diminish Paul in the mind of the voters during the recent South Carolina debate.

Cameron should be fired; if he worked for any other network than Fox, he might be. Dennis Kucinich has also received similar questions during debates and for the life of me, I don't understand why someone doesn't stand up during these debates and dress these questioners down in front of 3 million viewers.

On the other side, the Clintons continue to talk at us, and not with us. Witness Hillary’s understanding of Dr. King’s legacy as spoken to Fox News.

“I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished.”

Uhhh, Senator Clinton, correction needed.

Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when thousands joined with him to boycott the segregated buses, when thousands marched non-violently with him down the street in spite of often unprovoked violence against them by armed police and racist thugs, and when thousands gathered on the great lawns of our nation’s capital to hear his, and other’s pleas for equality. Only then did Johnson act.

It’s telling, and equally disheartening, that Clinton’s inexperienced command of history is no better than it is. What else has she missed?

People want meaningful change in the way our government functions. The candidate that can carefully articulate a workable plan to improve the quality of life of most every American will win this election.
---------------
Martin Luther King, Jr., Southern Christian Leadership Conference Convention, Atlanta, GA, 1960 photo by Howard Sochurek