[Ppnews] "Martin's Second Martyrdom" by Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Political Prisoner News]

MARTIN'S SECOND MARTYRDOM
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[Col. Writ. 1/7/07] Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal


Soon, every TV station and network, and many of the nation's radio 
stations, will air stock film footage (or tape) of Martin Luther 
King, Jr., his handsome dark face shining in a sea of dark faces, 
captured in his moment of triumph: the "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington.

They will gladly air this 'safe' Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 
who spoke loftily and eloquently of dreams.

Few will dare air his remarks made at Riverside Church in New York 
City, where an older, wiser Martin spoke, not of dreams but of 
realities -- of social, and especially economic injustice -- of 
rampant American militarism, and yes -- the nightmare of white racism.

One of those with him, who, too, would become a Rev. Dr., was Vincent 
Harding, a man who loved Martin, and who knew him as a brother, 
rather than an icon.

Rev. Dr. Harding, a leading theologian and historian, wanted others 
to know the Martin he'd known; so he wrote a book: *Martin Luther 
King: The Inconvenient Hero* (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1996 [8th 
printing]).  As Harding teaches us, King fell into the pit of 
betrayal, when he took on the war in Vietnam:

".... King was bitterly rebuked for taking on the issue of the war.
Some called it a diversion from the issue of black rights.  Others 
feared the terrible rage of [President] Lyndon Johnson who brooked no 
opposition (certainly not from black Martin Luther King!) to his 
destructive policies.

"Some members of King's own Southern Christian Leadership Conference 
(SCLC) board of directors opposed his role in the antiwar movement, 
partly because they had seen the way in which the liberal white 
allies of the movement had withdrawn financial support from the 
radicalized young people of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating 
Committee), who dared stand in solidarity with the Vietnamese 
opponents of America's intervention ...

"In the face of all this, partly because of all this, King persisted, 
and the Riverside speech - delivered exactly one year before his 
assassination, was the most notable result of his 
decision.  Immediately the drumbeat of harsh criticism was 
heightened.  It came from many ... including such black stalwarts as 
Jackie Robinson, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and Carl Rowan." [pp. 70-71]

Rev. Dr. Harding also recounts how the allegedly 'liberal' 
*Washington Post* assailed Rev. Dr. King for daring to oppose the 
war.  The newspaper editorial called his words "Bitter and damaging 
allegations and inferences that he did not and could not 
document."  In the view of the *Post's* editors, "many who have 
listened to him with respect will never again accord him the same 
confidence.  *He has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his 
country, and to his people.*" [Harding, p. 71]

To his credit, Harding explains, King did not heed such criticisms, 
for he knew that they were on the side of war and death.

Harding writes that King became increasingly radicalized, and 
emboldened to speak out against injustice; Riverside was a turning point:

"(Who knew that night, April 4, that he had precisely one more year 
to live, that the bullet was closing in?)  For King saw the larger 
context.  He had already declared in other places that his "beloved 
country" was "engaged in a war that seeks to turn the clock of 
history back and perpetuate white colonialism."  Underlying this 
backwardness, he said, was America's refusal to recognize that "the 
evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils 
of racism." [p. 101]

This ain't the Martin Luther King we see on commercials, nor the ones 
we see in newspaper ads around the days of his birth or death.

*That* Martin Luther King, anti-war critic, economic justice 
activist, advocate for the poor, fellow sufferer of the bombed and 
oppressed in Vietnam, a budding socialist (or at least 
anti-capitalist), had become, in Harding's words, 'the inconvenient hero.'

May we remember who he *really* was.

That King has almost vanished from our popular media, white-washed 
culture and history.

Were it not for folks like Vincent Harding, he might have.



Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Mr. Jamal's recent book features a chapter on the
remarkable women who helped build and defend
the Black Panther Party: *WE WANT FREEDOM:
A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South
End Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph.
#1-800-533-8478.]
===============================

"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is
just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die.
And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about
justice." - Mumia Abu-Jamal

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========================================

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