Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..

Uhhh, not according to Jesus.

 

Oh, you are guilty of applying your culture to the culture of the time of George Washington. Washington's words were not what you say they were.

Jefferson is a Democrat so I never bother to defend him or attack him. They had him out of the country (I think) when they got ready to write the Constitution. Jefferson was an intellectual prone to speculative thought that was not productive as far as I know. To me, he is not an interesting person.

As for Columbus, he has been attacked for the last ten years for bringing all those white folks over here and now not one of them will go back to Europe. I am so old that I admire Columbus.

As for MLK, I openly disadmire him. In fact, I think that he is so phoney that I never pay any attention to him. But then I always did like Ralph Abernathy more than MLK. Affirmative Action is wrong in my book. The children of Secretary of State Powell get affirmative action even though they already have money and political power. Meanwhile someone else gets denied a chance, for example, at the University of Michigan Law School (a blessing in disguise). It's wrong. But the pillar of salt in the Supreme Court says that we need at least 25 more years of it. We are all created equal, but....

 

Affirmative Action and MLK are two different topics. I'm very much against affirmative action. I's contrary to MLK's ideas of society being color blind.

As for Washingtons writings. You're right about the standards of writing be different. In that day, a man did not dare write such things to a person he was not in love with.

 

There may not be any documentation for such an accusation against Washington. Personally, I think that it merely meant friendship as the language of the day was more stilted than it is today and society, especially in Europe, very formal. It is laughable that today's standards of language and conduct were higher than Washington's. American culture has reached a point nearly as low as ancient Rome or Greece, both pagan, heathen states.

At any rate, General Motors and others who have attacked Washington has usually done so for selfish economic or political motives. The revisionism of US History began about one hundred years ago.

It is a tribute to the British that they themselves never attacked George Washington for low morals even though his revolution against the Crown might have provoked such disinformation. Heretofore, I think that the only criticism ever raised against Washington was that his military stragety was sometimes poor.

To the modernists and post-modernists who attack Washington, I say that I wonder what you will achieve if you falsely bring down a Puritanical figure who played such a role in bringing about the freest society in the history of the world?

MLK was an unsavory character by any standard. He resembles Father Divine in his cultic theology and hedonistic sexual practices and his use of communist money points to the hyprocrisy of the liberal political movement that does not want to donate money to support its goals but mooches from fringe elements or calls for taxpayer funding. Nor does MLK's political movement hesitate to endorse at least twenty-five more years of quotas, and probably wants one hundred more years of quotas.

 

Dr. King deserves a holiday in his name - why for the simple reason that he changed history - for the better. Read the speech - put yourself into the shoes of a Black person in 1963 then look at where they are today!


"I Have A Dream"
by Martin Luther King, Jr,


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

Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source: Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" we can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring." And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

 

Black people in these United States were put at a disavantage socially and economicaly which is the defintion of a "ni--er" according to webster dictionary. Dr.King stood against the injustuce of Jim Crow laws, the right for people of color to vote. In that time to go against policy written or unwritten one could be labeled a communist. If this man Dr. King had not joined in with others to demand to be treated equally would we still have separated water fountains? In 1980 in a county in TN they still had segragted movie houses. Some claim he was a vile man because of the allegations that he had extra marrital affairs, does this change the fact the fight he fought was just? Do you beleive change would have come when it did without his contribution to the civil rights movement?
I hate racism in every form it presents itself. I see it to be very blind sighted to compare Dr. King to Hitler, King never once said all white people should be put to death only that law makers uphold the language of the constitution and the bill of rights. If this makes him vile I am at a loss for words to desribe the despair in which my children shall live. I am able to separate the good that he did from accusation of his accuseres.

We should keep in mind that if King had not preached and stood for non-violence that thousands of young black men would have taken to the street under the influence of black mus teachings. Many more would have died without King advocating peace marches and turn the other cheek philosophy of effecting change.

 

Goodness, hasn't this thread died a natural death? No offense, but I think we're all talked out about the subject.

 

Oh, is THAT why such things never happened?

 

alcott
that's why violence was limited prior to his death. muslim teaching at the time would have fostered a more violent means of change that would have never worked. Like now you cannot fight hate with weapons of war, it also applies for that time . hate and anger rest in the bossom of fools and can never be beat out. King understood this philosophy. Change the way a man thinks and his behavior changes. this made him dangerous in the time of jim crow laws and uncontested beatings and murders by to many.

 

time like this:

i hope you hang around a while. I enjoy your posts. Much of the attack against King avoids any mention of the inherent racism that he combated. I remember how many of my teachers kept saying that George Washington Carver would be a better choice as if we should substitute Edison for Washington.
It was an embarrassing time in which King lived and I don't know if we whities can truly understand what needed to be accomplished and what he attempted to accomplish.
I always grin wryly when I hear how the Communist Party mentored King and his movement. It would have been nice if the collective body of Christ in America had placed as much energy in fighting racism and hatred as they do abortion and liberalism