Today is the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I wish I knew more about King. Everything I know can probably be summarized in a few sentences. I won't look any of this stuff up because I'm really lazy.
King led SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, from the mid-5os onward. He led the Montgomery bus boycott inspired by Rosa Parks, successfully desegregating public transportation in Montgomery.
He was imprisoned in Birmingham after a protest, and responded to a letter by white ministers in Birmingham's paper criticizing his methods and aims. This famous "Letter from the Birmingham Jail" established the goals of the nonviolent resistance movement.
Under his direction, the SCLC--along with the more radical SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee--rose to the front of the civil rights movement. King quickly became a celebrity and an icon of equality.
He was watched by the FBI as a suspected Communist, and did in fact organize meetings with various organizations to use the nonviolent method to improve economic justice. He organized a march on Washington, D.C. to draw attention to the civil rights struggle.
Then, in 1968, he was shot in a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray was found two months later and convicted of the crime, although (okay I did use Wikipedia for this) Ray recanted a confession and attempted to withdraw a guilty plea after his trial.
His lawyer recommended pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty (instead, Ray received a 99-year sentence), but Ray later fired his lawyer and tried to have the trial he passed up by pleading guilty.
He never got it, and died in prison. That's how we treat people who won't stick with their confessions, I suppose.
So why the history lesson? I think Martin Luther King is probably one of the most admirable, respectable, impressive and great human beings in history. That's why I was a little hurt when I found a flyer about him on the lawn in front of our house today.
Let me reproduce the front in its entirety:
MLK Jr.'s DREAM IS AMERICA'S NIGHTMARE!
King was a member of many communist organizations!
King was a known womanizer!
King promoted race-mixing!
Your children are made to think that King is a great hero!
ABOLISH THE COMMUNIST KING HOLIDAY!
Mystic Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
National Office
P.O. Box 0001
Dayton, OH 45434
www.mysticknights.org
Not much to add to that, really. The back is an immense essay titled "THE SHOCKING FACTS" that really didn't shock me much. King hung out with some people connected to the American Communist Party because he was interested in economic justice. Oh dear.
What makes me laugh a little now is the part toward the beginning of the back. "King is the only American born individual that has a national holiday. Not one of our founding fathers--not Washington, not Adams, not Franklin not even Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence is honored with a holiday."
Forget the bad punctuation. I mean, laugh at it, then forget it.
Okay. They're suggesting King doesn't deserve a holiday in part because he was a womanizer who promoted the ever-dangerous "race-mixing." Yet they recommend these four men--racist slaveowner, racist slaveowner, racist slaveowner, racist slave-fucker--have their own holidays.
I guess in my mind, womanizing is just a little more acceptable than owning slaves. That might be why I have a problem with it.
Who knows? Maybe if Washington had his own holiday, the KKK would protest that a slaveowner had a holiday for himself. I'm sure, as fair-minded individuals, they would protest.
What bothers me the most about this flyer is the first headline. "MLK Jr.'s DREAM IS AMERICA'S NIGHTMARE!"
The "I Have a Dream" speech might be the most wonderful thing anyone said publicly in the 20th century. It's inspiring and glorious. It makes me nearly believe in God.
It's not much of a surprise that the KKK would hate it, though. It basically describes a world without people like them.
Oh, well. I have often thought I would be a big fan of "AMERICA'S NIGHTMARE," if I could just figure out what "AMERICA'S NIGHTMARE" might be. Well, I've found it, apparently, and I must say it's even better than I thought.
Anyway, I won't recommend for or against writing to the KKK or going to their website. They're beyond convincing. Of course, the "how" and "why" of them being beyond convincing is debatable, but whatever.
One more thing about the flyer: I don't know if "National Office" means the KKK's nationwide office is in Dayton. I guess it does mean that. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fucker fuck fuck.
That's how my MLK Day was. I loved the man and he would probably scream and cry if he saw how little people care about what he said and did.
I will review the Flyer News, and I will review myself, but I think I must review a book first.
It's a book of short stories by Dave Eggers. If you recognize the name, it might be because I reviewed his A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius as my first review.
This book is called How We Are Hungry and I'lll save my thoughts on it until the review. But I can't wait.
So bye now.
Love,
Steve
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2 comments:
Look--I didn't read this.
Lay off the phones.
DJ Katscan has a point.
Franklin was not a slaveowner. He was president of "The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage," which I guess is great.
Congrats, Ben Franklin.
On the other hand, an excavation of Franklin's home in 1998 uncovered the bones of six children and four adults. While Wikipedia makes some lame-ass "he rented his house to a young surgeon" claim, I'm going to assume Franklin was a serial killer.
That sick bastard.
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