Today is Martin Luther King day here in the United States. In remembering Dr. King’s legacy, alas, his story is sometimes reduced to a few simplistic soundbites, and we forget how much of a struggle his famous struggle really was.
The one thing no one seems to want to remember is how much opposition there was to King and his message, and how ugly and violent and hateful this opposition was.
King and his family faced real threats and real harassment on a daily basis. He was subject to real violence, yet continued to preach a message of nonviolence.
As a reminder of the courage it took to be Martin Luther King, here’s an account of a march he led in Chicago in 1966, taken from Rick Perlstein’s book Nixonland. (Content warning: Racist language, violence.)
August 5. Six hundred open-housing activists, ten thousand counterdemonstrators. Some wore Nazi helmets. Others waved Confederate battle flags, carried George Wallace banners, swastika placards that helpfully explained THE SYMBOL OF WHITE POWER.
Martin Luther King, Mahalia Jackson by his side, led his legions forth: “We are bound for the promised land!”
“Kill those niggers!”
“We want Martin Luther Coon!”
Police trying to keep the two sides apart were screamed at: “Nigger-loving cops!” “God, I hate niggers and nigger-lovers,” a reporter overheard an old lady say.
Martin Luther King walked past.
“Kill him! Kill him!”
“Roses are red, violets are black, King would look good with a knife in his back.”
Instead he got a baseball-size rock above his ear. He slumped to the ground—the Gandhian moment of truth. … King got up and kept on marching. We shall overcome.
The racist mob continued to pelt the demonstrators with rocks and bottles, many of them aimed at King. Some 30 others were injured.
Why did King put himself at such risk? “I have to do this–to expose myself–to bring this hate into the open,” he later explained.
He also, as a result of his activism in Chicago, got local real estate agents to agree to abide by the city’s fair housing ordinance. Not a dramatic concession, but a meaningful one, and one that illustrated the kind of everyday discrimination that blacks faced in America.
This is what a real civil rights hero looks like.
EDIT: Here’s some footage of one of King’s marches in Chicago, and a Chicago Tribune video about King’s Chicago activism. The footage here is supposedly of King’s march in Gage Park; the march described above took place in Marquette Park, where he got an even more hostile reception.
Thanks for this.
What? You’re not gonna go after AVFM’s video on MLK they made today? I’m sure they may have said or done something to piss you off. They always do.
Fuck off, Charlotte, if that’s the best you can say. You like racists, hmm? Doesn’t surprise me.
Charlotte, I’m not watching 50 minutes of Elam and Co on MLK day. Why don’t you transcribe and timestamp the worst bits and get back to me.
Given “Charlotte” is an MRA troll, zie wouldn’t think there were worst bits.
What kind of troll trolls a thread about Martin Luther King, Jr?
At a guess, one who’s a bigotries clusterfuck.
Charlotte, you suck.
There are better things to do to honor Dr. King rather than watch a video produced by a hate group that twist everything that Dr. King stood for to bolster their screwball ego’s and hate group.
It is absolutely disgusting that they are even mentioning Dr. King just so they may use his memory to promote their hate.
Shame on them!
They showed a bit of footage from this march on MSNBC a little while ago (just as background footage while talking about MLK) and some of it looked like it was of this exact moment; he didn’t fall to the ground but kept on marching.
So it looks like the photo is not a photo of him being hit by the rock that knocked him to the ground, but of him at another point being hit by another rock. I wonder how many times he was hit by rocks and other things during the march? Amazing courage, all those marchers.
See, I was just going to say to David thanks for the thoughtful post, then I saw Charlotte.
@Kitteh, re the Buddhism thing, do you think the whole ‘Engaged’ aspect of ‘Engaged Buddhism’ would cover a situation like this? I mean, I really want to get back to the Buddhist thing (even with it’s flaws) but, but, fucking MRAs, fucking Charlotte!
::mutter, mutter::
Yeah, I reckon ‘Engaged” could cover telling fuckwits to fuck off, not a contradiction AT ALL.
I mean that wanking libertarian Buddhist said he could loophole a prostitute into the Buddha’s teachings, surely one ‘fuck off fuck head’ wouldn’t hurt?
Also David thanks for the thoughtful post.
I wasn’t trolling, that was a serious question. I imagined you guys would’ve loved to see Futrelle find yet another excuse to thrash AVFM. So how bout you knock it off.
How ’bout you not tell the blog owner here what to write?
Charlotte, you are complaining that David wrote a nice, respectful post about Dr. King and not one “thrashing” AVFM. You are the one whining. You knock it off.
I had to look up Engaged Buddhism, but from a quick reading of its precepts I’d go with the first one that points out it’s a guide, not an absolute truth … I dunno, I’m just not into the Be Nice teachings when it comes to these turds.
Go do your fanboy/fangirl/whatever schtick with Elam, “Charlotte”. Or have you been banned there for posting under a female nym?
Anyone with decency is outraged or disgusted by Elam. That you apparently aren’t and can’t understand it says all we need to know about you.
There is no excuse needed in order to trash AVFM.
David: very nice post! MLK is really one to admire and remember.
Funny, I thought was supposed to be against bullying, yet you guys seem to be pretty eager to use it against anyone who even steps the slightest bit out of line.
Calling out != bullying
Stop whining, Charlotte.
I think Malcolm X deserves more credit than he gets as well. I admire both immensely, but I feel like he’s been pushed aside over the years by white liberals who were made uncomfortable by his (quite justifiable and even important) more aggressive attitude.
” Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.” -Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Whine, whine, whine, Charlotte. It’s a one-note song with you.
I went looking to see if I could find video of this incident, and found footage of what I think is a different march in chicago that summer — though it might also be mislabeled footage of this march. I also put up a brief video that puts the marches in a broader context and explais what King was doing in Chicago that summer.
There are some incredibly vile racists in the youtube comments to the footage of the march. I mean, bad even by youtube standards.
It is worth noting that Chicago is still extremely residentially segregated, particularly when it comes to blacks and whites. Much of the south side is basically all black, and there are neightborhoods on the north side that are basically all white. There are also big areas that are essentially all Latino, though there are more mixed white/Latino areas than there are White/Black except for Hyde Park on the South Side.
There are also chunks of the city that are more integrated. Or semi-integrated. Chicago has a lot of patchy segregation that sometimes happens almost on a block-by-block basis (or at least has very definite neighborhood boundaries). The block I live on is, I’m pretty sure, almost all white, but the area I live in is actually reasonably diverse.
Here’s a very detailed ethnic map of chicago, which I find endlessly fascinating. There are similar maps for a number of other cities.
http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots
Thank you David, the injustices of the past, and unfortunately the current, can’t be brought to light too often. Dr. King had amazing courage to do what he did and we all can only hope to live up to his dream. The most recent generation by far is baffled and disgusted by what happened in the past. Hopefully they will be the force to continue change in the future.
Charlotte, go pound salt.