MLK 2010

The keynote speech by Dr. Julianne Malveaux, President, Bennett College for Women, for Lexington Kentucky’s Martin Luther King Day celebration – styled, MLK 2010, The Unfinished Agenda – was met with rousing applause and affirmations rarely heard beyond the amen corner on Sunday morning. With an affinity born of traversing teen age in the 1960s and 70s, stirred by my recollection of the impassioned speaking and fearless non-violent confrontation of this American giant, 2010 was my first attending the celebration of his work.

Hearing Dr. Malveaux characterize Dr. King’s work with the image of presenting a check written on an overdrawn account at the bank of inalienable rights, the familiar emotions rose up in me. I could recall how the melody of his voice, waxing and waning with the thrust of his message, prompted fellow Americans to respond with action, while, in my scant eleven years, I could but watch in awe, excited to live in such an exciting time. Imagine my surprise, yesterday, hearing Dr. Malveaux say, “Now I’m not calling Dr. King a socialist,” and go on to describe his advocacy of redistribution of wealth.

I was going to introduce this blog by positing: “The problem with someone else finishing what they call your, “Unfinished Agenda,” is that it becomes, by definition, their agenda,” and lay Dr. Malveaux bare as a historical reconstructionist having drunk too much of the current day’s political kool-aid. Turning to the internet to prove my point, I have just found:

“By 1964, King had reached the conclusion that blacks faced "basic social and economic problems that require political reform." But the vicious nature of northern ghetto poverty in particular convinced King that the best hope for America was the redistribution of wealth. In his 1967 presidential address to the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), entitled "The President's Address to the Tenth Anniversary Convention" (included in Testament of Hope, a collection of King's speeches edited by James Washington), King urged his colleagues to fight the problems of the ghetto by organizing their economic and political power. King implored his organization to develop a program that would compel the nation to have a guaranteed annual income and full employment, thus abolishing poverty, and he preached that "the Movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society." When such a question was raised, one was really "raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth," and thus, one was "question[ing] the capitalistic economy." These words mark a profound transformation in King's thinking.” No Small Dreams – The Radical Evolution of Martin Luther King’s Last Years by Michael Eric Dyson, 01.20.03; http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featdyson_mlk.shtml

Many men have found themselves in far worse torment and oppression for just being who they are than I’ve ever experienced. Others have made free-will choices of conscience with similar repercussions. So, who am I to say what should be done?

Maybe my ethics truly are situational: whoever tells the most heartrending story wins my vote.

How, during the McCarthy era, did they ever wean us on the story of Robin Hood? It must have been a holdover from a less commie-conscious era than the 1950’s, used to justify America’s political revolt against European monarchy.

As kids we cheered when the cavalry saved the wagon train from the murderous Indians. Then we read about the Trail of Tears watched Wounded Knee unfold on the television.

I used to believe that the Irish were no more than a gang of superstitious, drunken thugs with bombs. Then I read about English King Edward I’s conquest of Scotland and the collateral fallout for Ireland.

The first Christians were said to have had all things in common – that is, they pooled their resources that all might be sustained during the time when they were outcasts by the Jews and the occupying Roman Empire. The apostle John told first century Christians that a worse time was coming upon them. Who of them knew it would last 300 years?

What was the right thing to do? Would I have done better? What should I do now?