The Martin Luther King Jr You Don't See On TV

[zartan]

Interesting article about MLK's priorities, conveniently ignored, during his later years

The Martin Luther King You Don't See On TV
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon

(from 1995)

It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader."

The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years -- his last years -- are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.

What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).

An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.

Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV.

Why?

It's because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.

In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to eat at a public lunch counter.

But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights" -- including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.

Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.

"True compassion," King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

By 1967, King had also become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was "on the wrong side of a world revolution." King questioned "our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America," and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions "of the shirtless and barefoot people" in the Third World, instead of supporting them.

In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about "capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries."

You haven't heard the "Beyond Vietnam" speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967 -- and loudly denounced it. Time magazine called it "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The Washington Post patronized that "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People's Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would descend on Washington -- engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be -- until Congress enacted a poor people's bill of rights. Reader's Digest warned of an "insurrection."

King's economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor" -- appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness."

How familiar that sounds today, more than a quarter-century after King's efforts on behalf of the poor people's mobilization were cut short by an assassin's bullet.

As 1995 gets underway, in this nation of immense wealth, the White House and Congress continue to accept the perpetuation of poverty. And so do most mass media. Perhaps it's no surprise that they tell us little about the last years of Martin Luther King's life.

[zartan]

MLK on Vietnam in 1967

And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954-in 1945 rather-after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China-for whom the Vietnamese have no great love-but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need
for land and peace.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.

Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets." The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.

Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call "VC" or "communists"? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the North" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of a new violence?

[Shakey]

im not touching it

[Synz]

yea i should leave this one alone also... but actually... I did a report about this exact thing in high school, and that phrase King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." is very popular and widespread.

[zartan]

why leave it alone?

[Shakey]

everytime people (white people) get on this subject..........everyone gets all huffy talking about how great MLK was. Shit......i didn't know the guy myself. he was dead before i was born. I don't really know enough about the subject to put my two cents in.

[zartan]

someone can be great and also have views you disagree with. Thomas Jefferson was a great man who kept slaves.

[Shakey]

yeah, thats not what im saying though. if white people even say the name martin luth-......thats when everyone starts going crazy. at least in my experience.

[nietzsche]

MLK on Vietnam in 1967

no discussion on the communists role in all that? or any talk of preventing the travesties of Stalin's rule from infecting another country? the notion that we simply we simply went there to committ atrocities, or refusing to acknowledge that there was a greater purpose, sadly, makes this easily dismissable.

[EmmaK]

thanks for posting that zartan. i'm embarassed to admit how little i know about MLK Jr outside from his civil rights leadership.
are there any video recordings of him from post-64, talking about these sorts of issues? what about writen works?

[LibertyinmyLife]

I love what MLK did for civil rights, but personally I'm glad that his economic stance didn't get as much publicity, because I disagree with it. Love his views on the war, don't like his views on redistributing wealth.

[Skandar]

He wasn't a prophet or something and never claimed to be, so why would all his views be agreeable to everyone?

[zartan]

yeah brian i agree with you to some degree - i was posting it more as an example of how we whitewash (to misuse a term badly!) our heroes and pick and choose what we remember of them. this process of deification is fascinating.

[lovedumplingx]

im not touching it:werd:

[EmmaK]

are there any video recordings of him from post-64, talking about these sorts of issues? what about writen works?

zartan, i was asking you.

and side not: why is it that people have to post the fact they won't be touching an issue? wouldn't it make more sense to just...not touch it?
(that's a general observation, not directed at james or joel)

[Atari_pip]

[B]I actually am ashamed to say that I also don't know very much at all about MLK.

[lovedumplingx]

and side not: why is it that people have to post the fact they won't be touching an issue? wouldn't it make more sense to just...not touch it?
(that's a general observation, not directed at james or joel)By stating we're not touching it we let the author know that yes it is something to think on, but we by our nature cannot enter into that forum of discussion.

[Skandar]

yeah brian i agree with you to some degree - i was posting it more as an example of how we whitewash (to misuse a term badly!) our heroes and pick and choose what we remember of them. this process of deification is fascinating.

I like that desciption, "process of deification." America loves to have heroes, and heroes can't be so inspirational if we remember things they did that may be disagreeable. If we do talk about their "other side" then it's usually put in humorous terms or described as "mistakes." Thomas Jefferson loved to rape his female slaves, but so did everybody else so that's ok! Babe Ruth was a drunkard, but man think about all those home runs! Christopher Columbus stole a continent and spread rape, murder, and robbery to the entire Native American race, but he discovered our great and noble country!

[evey]

zartan, i was asking you.

and side not: why is it that people have to post the fact they won't be touching an issue? wouldn't it make more sense to just...not touch it?
(that's a general observation, not directed at james or joel)

I think it's just so people know that they're not gonna touch it.

For example:

There are threads where I don't want to say a word in, so I say, "I'm not saying a word in this thread." But the problem is, with that, I have said a word. I guess it's so people know that you'd rather not talk about it. Or maybe i'm just talking out of my ass. I dunno.

[Skandar]

By stating we're not touching it we let the author know that yes it is something to think on, but we by our nature cannot enter into that forum of discussion.

There's nothing wrong with controversy, don't be such a pussy.

[Zimma]

yeah brian i agree with you to some degree - i was posting it more as an example of how we whitewash (to misuse a term badly!) our heroes and pick and choose what we remember of them. this process of deification is fascinating.

Agreed. Although I find it hard to fault him for this, when taking into consideration what a great civil leader and good person he was (based on what evidence I've ever come into contact with).

[LibertyinmyLife]

We do whitewash our heroes. It's much easier to worship a person with a squeaky clean record. The problem is that none of us is perfect, and no one has universally popular values.

The rape and pillage examples Skandar provided are a little extreme of a comparision, and I think Babe Ruth as a drunkard is a good example of whitewashing, but Babe Ruth's drinking problem had nothing to do with his career and really wasn't the public's business.

MLK was a very skilled political figure with some great views, and some shitty views. And all of us are great at some aspects of our work and shitty at other aspects of our work and it doesn't (usually) make us any less useful.

[Skandar]

We do whitewash our heroes. It's much easier to worship a person with a squeaky clean record. The problem is that none of us is perfect, and no one has universally popular values.

The rape and pillage examples Skandar provided are a little extreme of a comparision, and I think Babe Ruth as a drunkard is a good example of whitewashing, but Babe Ruth's drinking problem had nothing to do with his career and really wasn't the public's business.

MLK was a very skilled political figure with some great views, and some shitty views. And all of us are great at some aspects of our work and shitty at other aspects of our work and it doesn't (usually) make us any less useful.

I wasn't making a comparison at all, I was just giving examples of how we whitewash our heroes.

[evey]

but Babe Ruth's drinking problem had nothing to do with his career and really wasn't the public's business.

Thank you. Which is exactly why Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame.

[zartan]

the thing i try to do is put myself in someone's shoes to understand why they feel the way they do, and brian (nietzsche) if you had dealt with the US government throughout the civil rights movement you might have a different perspective on vietnam. you know what i mean? you write:

no discussion on the communists role in all that? or any talk of preventing the travesties of Stalin's rule from infecting another country? the notion that we simply we simply went there to committ atrocities, or refusing to acknowledge that there was a greater purpose, sadly, makes this easily dismissable.

and i would say, no, that makes it INCOMPLETE but not dismissable. And its interesting that he formed this perspective on things based on his interaction with the white power structure of the 60s...

emmaK, sorry, I don't know of any online sources but the article states there are videotapes of him making these speeches

[lovedumplingx]

Thank you. Which is exactly why Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame.This is off-topic, but Pete Rose broke rules of gambling on baseball. The Babe did not. I also think Pete should be in the Hall of Fame but that's neither here nor there. He did break the rules.

[evey]

But his gambling had nothing to do with his career either. So what if he was a shitty coach and broke the rules. He should be in because how good of a player he was. He's been banned long enough.

[LibertyinmyLife]

I wasn't making a comparison at all, I was just giving examples of how we whitewash our heroes.
Sorry, my misunderstanding :) Agreed on the whitewashing of everyone...except for Babe Ruth, because his drinking problem has nothing to do with his ability to be a hero, whereas having bad character (raping people) does.

[LibertyinmyLife]

But his gambling had nothing to do with his career either. So what if he was a shitty coach and broke the rules. He should be in because how good of a player he was. He's been banned long enough.
Didn't he bet on baseball and throw the games and stuff? That's different than a drinking problem.

And now back to MLK...

[Skandar]

Sorry, my misunderstanding :) Agreed on the whitewashing of everyone...except for Babe Ruth, because his drinking problem has nothing to do with his ability to be a hero, whereas having bad character (raping people) does.

Didn't Babe beat his wives or something? Probably a bad example, but you get the point.

[LibertyinmyLife]

Beating people is different than a drinking problem, because beating people = hurting others, drinking = hurting yourself. So, booo Babe.

[EmmaK]

And now back to MLK...
quite tryin to be all off topic and shit... :wink:

[nietzsche]

yeah brian i agree with you to some degree - i was posting it more as an example of how we whitewash (to misuse a term badly!) our heroes and pick and choose what we remember of them. this process of deification is fascinating.

good point. see: JFK and Reagan.