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Today is the day American many politicians pretend to care about the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr, one of the wisest souls who attempted to save this sorry nation. Don’t fall for their scams.
While King did care about black and/or poor people in the United States and around the world, he was no American exceptionalist. “Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world,” King once said.
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He also criticized how Americans “have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice,” when “the fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, here and abroad”.
And yet, modern day Republicans and Democrats often speak as if they love King, even as they excoriate the real heirs to his legacy: the Black Lives Matter activists and other social justice warriors who fight for racial and economic liberation. But the truth is, many of these American politicians would have hated King when he was alive as much as they hypocritically dishonor his radical legacy today.
Take President Trump, who signed a bill a week ago turning King’s birth place into a national park, only to viciously refer to immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and all countries in Africa as “shithole countries” a few days later – stirring up the kind of racist hatred King died trying to defeat over the weekend the nation remembers him.
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"> If he’d lived past age 39, King would have been offended by Trump calling Haiti a 'shithole' country
Take Democrat Senators (who love to talk about loving King) and who recently voted for a $700bn war funding package this fall, the kind of bill King would have excoriated as part of “the three evils of society” – “the giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation and militarism.”
Our war-loving politicians would not have liked when King got all up at Riverside Church a year to the day before he was assassinated to deliver his most powerful speech: “Beyond Vietnam.” They’d have cringed when he criticized American imperialism, warning “if we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam” and that “the world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve”.
If he’d lived past age 39, King would have been offended by Trump calling Haiti a “shithole” country and saying Haitians “all have Aids”. But King would have been equally angry about the exploitation of Haiti for centuries – by enslavement, by colonial plunder, and even by “respectable” US Republicans like George HW Bush.
It was under Bush senior in the early 1990s, after all, when the US intercepted hundreds of fleeing Haitian refugees, sent them to a makeshift prison at Guantanamo Bay (this, not 9/11, is how Gitmo became an indefinite detention center), tested them for HIV, and sterilized the HIV positive women without their knowledge or consent.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘If he were here today, King would be down on his knees with NFL protesters questioning the premise of the National Anthem.’ Photograph: Michael Zagaris/Getty Images
If King were alive today, American politicians would likely be enraged that he was unhappy about the tax scam bill or the Dow hitting 25,000, and they’d be aggrieved when he got angry about Walmart laying off thousands of Sam’s Club workers with no notice and states wanting to add cruel work requirements to Medicaid for people who can’t work.
As often as American politicians are always saying they wish Ferguson or NFL protesters did things “more like King”, white Americans have never really liked any kind of racial protest, and didn’t especially like King when he was alive. They didn’t like him marching at Selma or helping run a bus boycott in Montgomery. The didn’t like him organizing a Poor People’s Campaign to try to bring together economically exploited people of all races. And they certainly didn’t like him showing up in Memphis to help sanitation workers strike for better working conditions after two of their own, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were killed on the job.
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As beautifully depicted on the cover of this week’s New Yorker cover art, “In Creative Battle” by Mark Ulriksen, if he were here today, King would be down on his knees with NFL protesters questioning the premise of the National Anthem and protesting militaristic jingoism. He’d have been with Eric Garner, as he told the police to stop harassing him.
And he would have been with “unbought and unbossed” Erica Garner, as she fought police until her sadly premature final breath at just 27.
As you listen to American politicians from both parties invoke MLK this weekend, think about if their actions live up to King’s vision of justice – and push them as hard as he would have when they fall short.
HE WAS a Christian minister and activist who led a groundbreaking civil rights movement - and gave African Americans the courage to speak up against injustice.
But Martin Luther King Jr.'s life was tragically cut short, when he was assassinated at age 39. Here we tell you everything you need to know about King, and how his life and work is remembered today.
Getty Images Martin Luther King Jr. was a leading figure in America's civil rights movement
When is Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2018?
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is an American federal holiday.
King was born in Atlanta on January 15 - and the holiday falls on the nearest Monday to this date.
Several cities and states began to mark the day in 1971, just three years after his death, and the date became an American federal holiday in 1986.
Hundreds of streets in the United States have been renamed in King's honour, as well as a whole county in Washington State.
Nearly 50 years after his death, King continues to inspire - and President Barack Obama famously asked for his bust to be placed in the Oval Office.
AP Pictured with his wife, Coretta, after leaving jail in 1956. King was found guilty of conspiracy to boycott city buses, but a judge suspended his $500 fine following an appeal
Who was Martin Luther King Jr.?
King was born in 1929 and became a Baptist minister and activist, who led a movement of nonviolent civil disobedience.
He led the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, where people took a stand against racial segregation by refusing to surrender their seats to white people.
The campaign lasted for a year, and was sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks - who refused to give up her seat.
Getty Images King addresses a crowd of demonstrators at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
King organised several nonviolent protests and marches in the following decade.
He helped to organise the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his famous 'I Have a Dream speech' and earned his reputation as one of he greatest public speakers in American history.
More of King's famous quotes include 'injustice is a threat to justice everywhere', and 'our lives begin to end the day we become silent on the things that matter'.
In 1964, King received a Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent fight against racial inequality.
Getty Images King arrives in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 - at the culmination of the Selma to Montgomery March. Pictured with Ralph Bunche, Coretta Scott King, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Hosea Williams (left-right)
In the final years of his life, King's focus changed to include a resistance to widespread poverty and the Vietnam War. The latter alienated many of his liberal allies.
In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington - called the Poor People's Campaign.
King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4 - and his death was followed by riots in many US cities.
He was shot by a single bullet fired by James Earl Day at 6pm, as he stood on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
King died an hour later at St Joseph's Hospital, and Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison - after pleading guilty to avoid receiving the death penalty.
Ray died in prison in 1998, when he was 70 years old.
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How is Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrated?
As Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday, civil servants and most school pupils get the day off. Some other companies also opt to have a paid holiday on MLK Day.
It's a day for religious services, educating the kids and looking back on how race relations have improved.
Over the years, it has evolved into a 'day of service' - when Americans are encouraged to volunteer and help those less fortunate.
The US financial markets will be closed for the day.
On Monday, the US celebrates the life and legacy of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr, who would have turned 89 years old.
The Baptist minister, Nobel Laureate and civil rights activist dedicated his life to "work for peace, social justice, and opportunity for all Americans".
Beginning in 1971, three years after he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, many US cities and states began to mark what is now known as "MLK Day".
In 1983, then-President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that created a federal holiday in King's honour. It was first observed three years later and continues to be celebrated on the third Monday of January. The day was chosen because it is often around King's birthday, January 15.
More than 30 years later, the day is still traditionally celebrated as one of service, honouring King's legacy and words, including his famous "I have a dream" speech, which continue to resonate today.
Here is a list of some of King's most emblematic quotes:
1. On injustice
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," King wrote from the Birmingham city jail in 1963.
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly," he said.
"Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial, 'outside agitator' idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Martin Luther King Jr
2. On truth and love
"I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction, " King said in his acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality," he continued.
"This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow."
King received the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent fight against racial inequality.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. Martin Luther King Jr
3. On education
"To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction," King wrote in the Morehouse College Student Paper, The Maroon, in 1947.
"Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education," he said.
"If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, brethren! Be careful, teachers!"
Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King Jr
4. On racism and violence
"The non-violent Negro is seeking to create the beloved community. He directs his attack on the forces of evil rather than on individuals," King said in a speech delivered in Finney Chapel in 1957, as reported by the Chronicle in 2008.
"The tensions are not between the races, but between the forces of justice and injustice; between the forces of light and darkness."
The tensions are not between the races, but between the forces of justice and injustice. Martin Luther King Jr
5. On religion
King was the author of the book Strength To Love, a collection of sermons that he wrote on a number of topics, including religion.
In one of King's sermons, he extolled the need for a "tough mind.
"The modern world", he said, has far too much "softmindedness" of "unbelievable gullibility".
King also had great appreciation and respect for science.
"There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists. But not between science and religion," he said.
"Their respective worlds are different and their methods are dissimilar.
"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary."
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge ... religion gives man wisdom ... they are not rival, they are complementary Martin Luther King Jr
6. On peace
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice," Martin Luther King responded after being accused of disturbing the peace during the "bus boycott" in Montgomery, Alabama.
The bus boycott was a 13-month political and social protest against the policy of racial segregation on public transit.
It ended on December 20, 1956. The US Supreme Court ultimately ruled that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional.
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr.
