Following up Monday’s MLK Day post, Roland Gibson writes, “I have to admit that with all the talk and media emphasis this
time of year surrounding MLK Jr. and his positive influence in our country, I
was very interested and intrigued to read your blog perspective - calling his
"I Have A Dream" speech kind of OVER-RATED. In my thoughts and
response, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about MLK's work - similar
to the way we talked about W.E.B. Du Bois in the Major Authors course this past
semester - in that they both used many different approaches; different genres,
in effect - in an attempt to achieve the goal of racial justice and harmony in
this country. I think if we choose to ask ourselves - in hindsight - and also
to try to answer the question: "What exactly was MLK trying to accomplish
in his brief “I Have A Dream speech"? (taken in the larger context of his
many other works and his action) I personally would say he did a pretty damn
good job. What stood out most for me in MLK Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech was
two key points:
Point #1 - The powerful and carefully-crafted IMAGERY MLK
Jr. used to communicate the country's deplorable social conditions, as far as
the Negro is concerned: "...America has given the Negro people a BAD
CHECK, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'" "But
we refuse to believe the bank of justice is BANKRUPT." "NOW is the
time to make real the PROMISES of DEMOCRACY. NOW is the time to rise from the
dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial
JUSTICE...to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the
solid rock of BROTHERHOOD." Who taught this guy to write and speak so
vividly like that? Was it his father... also a minister? This man was WAY ahead
of his time, in my opinion.
Point #2 - He was clearly speaking and advocating FOR the
American Negro, but - in the final analysis - he wasn't really speaking AGAINST
anybody; which is as surprising to me as it is refreshing. MLK JR's DREAM was
to include: "...all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and
Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics..."
This message of WHOLENESS is exactly what the country needed to hear at
the time, and the message is just as fitting and appropriate today.
Summing up: I would agree that this work of MLK Jr.'s has
to be taken in literary context to truly understand the man, and I further
think that there is definitely some necessary OVER-SIMPLIFICATION present in
his speech text, but I don't think I would have then concluded by calling it
kind of OVER-RATED.”
Following up Tuesday’s Rosa Parks piece, Matt Cogswell writes, “An older student of mine from Salter
fondly recalls meeting Ms. Parks in Montgomery when he was a child. I can't
remember the context other than his living in Alabama and meeting her. But,
what will always stay with me is the reverence in which he spoke of her. In
that moment, she was not just an icon or a name but a person, plain and simple.
I always believed that was the point Ms. Parks was trying to make anyway, that
she was just a person, no more or less worthy of special rights than anyone
else but to be considered a person, a human. The student was a black man, which
I suppose shouldn't matter, but it did make that memory all the more poignant
for me. He is also a veteran. I don't know much about veterans outside of their
service who have ‘advanced history,’ but I'm sure there's some prominent
figures there who ought to be remembered.”
Following up Wednesday’s Mississippi murders post, Ian Wilkins
writes, “Your assertions about the communal nature of that which
precipitates such things is very important and so often overlooked (I think
because it is more complex, and in difficult times we seek easy answers like
pointing the finger at a few instead of understanding the tacit [or
not-so-tacit[ participation of the many). To my mind one of the works which
best presents this facet of these kinds of issues is Bob Dylan's "Only A Pawn
in Their Game" from the 1964 album The
Times They Are A'Changin', a song in response to the
murder of Medgar Evers. While this song specifically deals with the power
structure in the South and the ways in which it manipulated the overall
political and cultural climate there, it also suggests that the specific
identity of the man whose ‘finger fired the trigger’ is unimportant in terms of
assessing the situation, that it was a system, a community of sorts, which put
whatever it was in the killer's brain that urged him to commit such an act.
This way of broadly contextualizing something so tragic and painful is not the
easy response, but it is important and holds much truth.”
Following up Thursday’s George
Wallace post, my colleague Joe
Moser writes, “I'm reminded of the great Drive-By
Truckers album SOUTHERN
ROCK OPERA. ‘The
Southern Thing,’ ‘Birmingham,’
and the spoken-word track ‘Three
Great Alabama Icons’ offer similarly nuanced takes on George Wallace and
that era. It's all about ‘the duality of the Southern thing.’”
Some other relevant pieces:
Rick Perlstein on the Santa-Clausification of MLK; and also on the
hate mail received by Illinois Senators when King came to Chicago.
Super Bowl series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you
think?
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