Martin Luther King, 1/15/29 - 4/4/68

Although today is widely recognized as Easter Sunday, for many of us it is the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King and also of (one year earlier) his Beyond Vietnam speech. Many people believe there was a connection between these two events. King was clearly the most important political figure of the second half of the twentieth century. Despite the fact that when King was murdered he was only 39 years old we are still feeling the impact of his contributions. Without King, there would be no President Barack Obama and whatever you think of Obama the man, that moment at 11pm November 8, 2008, when NBC declared his election, was a watershed in American history. But it is up to us to continue the work he began. All one had to do was witness the racist and homophobic behavior of the anti-health care thugs both inside and outside of the Capitol, to realize there is still much to be done.

Martin Presente!

Today is a real break with the past; let's look forward to the future

No matter what one may think about the future and the role the President-elect (for about another 11 hrs and 40 min) will play in it, it seems impossible not to get caught up in the inauguration celebrations going on in Washington and around the nation, The absolute appropriateness of the inauguration of the first president-of-color coming one day after the birthday of Martin Luther king, who must be smiling today, links the present to the past. (In 1964, Dr. King predicted that there would be a Black president "within 40 years".)

Beginning Sunday with the We Are One, the Obama inaugural celebration, and all it meant to see Pete Seeger there emotions have been very close to the surface. This can't be anything but a thrill to people who have been fighting against racism all our adult lives. But I think above all the faces of people of color in Washington, particularly the kids, speak loudly about what today's events mean, not just here, but around the world.

I think that today we will witness the inauguration of the first people's president in my lifetime. As I said at the beginning, no one knows what the future holds, but today (with the exception of the Bigoted Rev. Rick Warren) is all for the good. Let's hope the administration lives up to its first moments.

Power to the people!

Martin we hardly knew ye

While watching the coverage from Memphis today on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King I saw something I could hardly believe. There was John McCain standing outside the Lorraine Motel paying tribute to King's memory. How hypocritical can one get? Clearly McSame stands for everything Martin fought for and, perhaps, died for. Here are just a few of the ideas that animated the last years of his life. Much of this is a foreign language to McSame and the party he represents.




"I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos,” said King in 1967, “without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government."

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

King's economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor" — appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness."

For more on the Martin Luther King we rarely hear or read about see Stephen Bezruchka and Cohen and Soloman