These are the remarks I delivered this afternoon at Montgomery Countys Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Commemoration at Strathmore Hall: I confess I have mixed feelings about this celebration of Martin Luther King Day. I do believe it is right and just to honor this pivotal figure in American history. And I appreciate the great work of the Martin Luther King Day Commemorative Committee in putting this event together and the day of service that accompanies it. I think all of that is really nice. But Dr. King wasn’t really nice. Dr. King wasnt a smiling face on a cereal box. Dr. King was disruptive. Dr. King made a lot of people really angry. Dr. King advocated nonviolence, which is not the same thing as nonconfrontation. He did not believe that being nonviolent meant being conflict-averse. In thinking of what words from Dr. King I wanted to read today, I tried to find something that not everyone has heard already. And I decided on these words from his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? In this book, Dr. King defended the principle of nonviolence against the Black Power Movement which had grown tired of the nonviolent approach. And Dr. King was very sympathetic to advocates of Black Power, like Stokely Carmichael, who led SNCC. Dr. King wrote, “Stokely and his colleagues from SNCC were with us in Alabama when Jimmy Lee Jackson, a brave young Negro man, was killed and when James Reeb, a committed Unitarian white minister, was fatally clubbed to the ground. They remembered how President Johnson sent flowers to the gallant Mrs. Reeb, and in his eloquent ‘We Shall Overcome’ speech paused to mention that one person, James Reeb, had already died in the struggle. Somehow the President forgot to mention Jimmy, who died first. The parents and sister of Jimmy received no flowers from the President. The students felt this keenly. Not that they felt that the death of James Reeb was less than tragic, but because they felt that the failure to mention Jimmy Jackson only reinforced the impression that to white Americans, the life of a Negro is insignificant and meaningless (p. 34).” And so while we often remember Dr. King by associating him with the virtues of unity, brotherhood and love, and all of those are vitally important values to uphold, it is also important to remember that while Dr. King was indeed a champion of all people, he was first and foremost a champion for Black people. And it falls to us elected officials here in Montgomery County to remember that there are significant disparities affecting Black people in education, health care, housing and public safety. And that while we are the most diverse county in Maryland and we are proud of the fact that people from every part of the world choose this place to be their home, we also have unfinished business and a special responsibility to our county’s first minority group, some of whose ancestors came here in slavery. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to take this great book down off my bookshelf and thank you for letting me participate in this important event today.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:41:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015