That’s what I wrote for Hawaii’s MLK commemoration

That previous post is the essay I mentioned a while back, which was commissioned by the state of Hawaii. Any day now, you should also be able to find it at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Coalition–Hawaii website. My piece will be one of the items in the 2005 Souvenir Book. This year's theme is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I was asked to maintain a relatively non-partisan tone for the purposes of government publication. Here's something else I wrote that deals with the same subject matter but expresses my opinions more directly.

I should probably say a word or two about the significance of Martin Luther King Day in my family. Unless you've been reading HungryBlues for a while or you've dug around in my "About" page or older posts (or unless you know me), you may not know that my dad worked for Martin Luther King. In 1962 and 1963, Dad was Special Assistant to the President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I've said elsewhere that my father devoted his life to strengthening American democracy. His work for Dr. King was a crucial influence on him and the power of that relationship has much to do with what I do here on this site and as an activist.

The passing of James Forman this past week makes it especially poignant that this year's Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration dovetails with the 40th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act. In his tribute to James Forman, Charles Cobb, Jr. said, "the southern civil rights movement of the 1960s is largely misunderstood." The little discussed disagreement between King and Forman over whether to make the march from Selma to Montgomery is an example of what I think Cobb meant. While Martin Luther King played the necessary game with federal authorities to get sanction—and protection—for the marchers, James Forman and others in SNCC argued against the march:

[I]t had become very clear to most of us that mass marches like the March on Washington and the Selma-to-Montgomery March had a cathartic effect. Their size created the impression that "the people" had made a show of power and changes would be forthcoming, but actually they served as a safety valve for the American system by taking the pressure off—pressure created by local activity. (James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, 441-42.)

In the end, because they did not endorse the march, SNCC did not participate as a group, though members, including James Forman, marched as individuals in solidarity with—and to help protect from violence—the local people who were determined to make the long walk.

Through grassroots organizing SNCC sought to put power into the hands of oppressed people and break the local systems that hurt them. Martin Luther King and the SCLC's great success in bringing the brutality of Southern racism onto the evening news and into living rooms across America elicited the moral outrage and caused the embarrassment necessary to make Congress pass landmark legislation in 1964 and 1965. What many did not see then, and still do not see now, is how those horrific acts of violence are expressions of a racist system whose violence is much broader and much more devastating than what is depicted in the images that have become part of American historical lore.

A 21st century feature of the American racist system is the Bush administration's public relations strategies to sell destructive policies to the people that they hurt. The Armstrong Williams scandal has generated some conversation about this, and Rox Populi has posted another example today, this time coming directly from George W., himself:

The Social Security issue is an interesting issue when it comes to African Americans. After all, the life expectancy of African American males is a lot less than other groups and, therefore, if you really think about that, you have people putting money in the system that aren’t — families won’t benefit from the system. And, therefore, it seems to me to make sense, if I were a part of a group of people that were being disadvantaged by the Social Security system, that I’d at least like to have the opportunity to have some of the money I put in the system passable to my family.

In Bush-speak injustice is when people miss the chance to have their pockets lined with cash—as if it's a forgone conclusion that African Americans die younger than white Americans (via Rox Populi; also see this).

While I'm talking about understanding the Civil Rights Movement, I want to recognize veterans of the Movement whom I've had the good fortune to come to know and work with—all former members of SNCC. First off, I'll mention Marsha Joyner, who invited me to write my essay for Hawaii's MLK Commemoration. Please note that Hawaii's annual MLK Day events join the celebration of King's life with commemoration of the armed invasion and overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. In Marsha's words,

Not only are we paying honor to our host culture, we feel that this is a story that should be told. There are generations of people who live and work here in Hawaii that do not know either story or how they are the same. Both stories stem from the same root: the root of imperialism and racism.

Before I met Marsha, I was woefully unaware of the terrible history of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, one of the great shames of the United States. The other Civil Rights Movement veterans I'd like to mention here are Heather Tilsen Baum, Scott B. Smith, and Linda Dehnad.

When we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, let us celebrate the complexity of the man and what he stood for, as well as remember that the Movement was a mass movement with countless heroes, a band of sisters and brothers in a circle of trust.