WW[MLK]D?

from the The Black Commentator

On or around the January 21st celebration of the life and work of Dr. King, Senator Obama was asked the question of who did he think Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have supported for President. Senator Obama offered a very profound answer: He said, to the effect, that Dr. King would probably have not supported anyone but would have been pressuring everyone on behalf of social justice.

In the wake of Obama’s outstanding victory in South Carolina, two things are clear:

* One, that this race is not over and that everything is clearly up in the air, meaning of course, that each state’s primary is critical.
* Two, that the candidates (especially Senators Clinton and Obama) must not be allowed to engage in a tit-for-tat squabble, but must be pushed on the actual content of their visions and platforms.

In this sense, Senator Obama’s words may be more insightful than even he realized when he uttered them.

In suggesting that Dr. King would be pressuring all of the candidates, Senator Obama was, perhaps, inadvertently offering a critique of this presidential season. At a point when the two top Democratic contenders, along with most of the media, are focusing on symbolism and celebrity, little attention has been given to the actual programmatic differences and similarities between Senators Clinton and Obama. Instead, we have been “entertained” to the political equivalent of reality TV with he said / she said / they said, instead of a focus on what the candidates, should they be elected, would commence to do the day after Inauguration.

It is easy to get swept up in the whirlwind. A serious African American candidate and a serious female candidate running in the same election is historic. A friend of mine (and fellow activist), commenting on the race said that while he agreed with former Senator John Edwards on the issues, he felt that the world did not want another white man in the office of the President of the United States. I remained silent for a minute in hearing this and then, after agreeing on the significant symbolic value of a woman or black man as President, asked my friend “…but what about the issues? What about what they would ACTUALLY do?” Sadly, my friend had no answer other than to repeat his point about the symbol of a different face in a high place.

My guess is that Dr. King would have been far less swayed by symbolism than are many of us. Among other things, Dr. King believed in the necessity for social movements to change conditions. While it is absolutely true that Dr. King, like many other great social movement leaders, needed political allies in office - as was the case with his relationship with President Lyndon Johnson at a certain moment - it was also the case that Dr. King gave priority to the movement over the person. In other words, while King agreed with Johnson on his civil rights reforms, he was willing to take the immense risk of turning against Johnson on the question of the Vietnam War. King stood on principle, and particularly, his central concern was for the welfare of those in mainstream society stepped upon each day, whether by throwing them into an immoral war; casting them aside in the name of a more efficient economy, or allowing them to languish in the poverty of the ghetto or the hills of Appalachia.

It would be worth thinking a bit more deeply. How are the candidates approaching the immense challenges of today? What are they saying about Iraq? About the recession we are entering? About healthcare? What difference will they make in the lives of the person who just lost their home to foreclosure?

We, who are concerned with justice, must be asking those questions and in that sense, emulating precisely what Senator Obama suggested Dr. King would be doing today. The pressure that Senator Obama believed Dr. King would be exerting would be far more than that of a phone call, email or fax and it would be far more than an individual act. It would be organizing and mobilizing a movement, that is, hundreds of thousands of those who have decided that they are ready to take their futures into their own hands, rather than await a savior.

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Executive Editor of The Black Commentator. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.

Happy Birthday MLK Jr.

Erica Contreras chair of the YDA Minority Caucus sent these inspirational quotes today:

Enjoy these quotes while we use this day to remember Dr. King, and all civil rights leaders...

"All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole
staircase."

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love
harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the
final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is
stronger than evil triumphant. "

"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells
him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment
in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its
injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

- More quotations on: [Laws]
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the
silence of our friends."

- More quotations on: [Silence]
"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can
stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important."

"Let no man pull you low enough to hate him."

"Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats
away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his
objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the
ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the
false with the true. "

"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects
revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method
is love."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter."

- More quotations on: [Silence]
"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper
darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out
hate: only love can do that."

"Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between
injustice and immorality."

"Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one
wise man forgets himself into immortality."

- More quotations on: [Immortality]
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as
fools."

"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong,
you cannot be too conservative."

- More quotations on: [Conservatives] [Liberals]
"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined
nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."

"All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings
us face to face with another problem."

"The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns
those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore,
brothers."

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral
questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression
and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind
must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge,
aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is
love."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

- More quotations on: [Justice]
"The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and
principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed
the mores of society."

"Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the
difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a
dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one
day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its
creed: - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal.'"

- More quotations on: [Dreams]
"I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will
die for, he isn't fit to live."

"...And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not
get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a
people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not
worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man."

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance
and conscientious stupidity."

- More quotations on: [Stupidity] [Ignorance]
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided
missiles and misguided men."

- More quotations on: [Science]
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of
comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge
and controversy."