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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 11, 1995)
«k J anuary 11, 1995 • T he P ortland O bserver P age C2 4 4 1 am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs, and even death. 1 am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. Therefore I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguer and com m itted to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which ha not won the very peach and brotherhood which is the essence o the Novel Prize. After contemplation I conclude that this award, which I receive on behalf o f the movement, is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and racial questions of our time - the need for man to overcome oppression without resorting to violence. ” . , , T Martin f nthpr Kino Jr. Happy 66th Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr.: How Wonderful Yet Is His Spirit Dedicated to a King who had no throne who had no crown King returned to Memphis on April 3, 1968, to lead a peaceful march of striking worker that would help boost his Poor People's Campaign, a huge demonstration against poverty. Arriving with him were (from left to right ministers Andrew Young and Palph Abernathy and student activist Bernard Lee. Continued from MLK front ▲ struggles ofthe city ' s sanitation work ers was a notice to the nation and to the world that he understood the real priorities o f the game. The establishment, too, under stood the priorities and so they killed him. The good Reverend must have known quite well that [they] would not let him live very long once he began toplay the big economic cards. Listen up, “ I have climbed the moun tain top and I have seen the other side". There will be the detractors for all who dare to dream and it would seem in this case but surely the most fragile mentality must concede the "self-evidence" o f these truths-an the fact that his cohorts and his fam ily carried the economic struggle to new heights. If one w ere not p erceptive enough to gain an idea o f Dr. King's goals from all the foregoing than certainly there was his last book, “ W here Do We go From here" (1967). "W ithin the ranks o f orga nized labor there are nearly two mil lion Negroes. N ot only are they found in large numbers as workers but they are concentrated in key industries. In the truck transportation, steel, auto and food industries which are the back bone o f the nation's economic life. N egroes make up nearly 20 per cent o f the organized work force. Now, d o n 't you think the an nouncement o f that fact by a strong, fearless and intelligent black leader would frighten the wits out o f the establishm ent0 From the administra tion and Washington think tanks to the industry board rooms, and from congress and the state houses to the seats ofpow er with in the unions them selves. And in the same book Dr. King was forecasting displacement o f the black worker by automation and the immediate need to set up new unions for the displaced and unski I led black worker moving into the service se c to r (K in g a n tic ip a te d McDonalds). Another consideration for an effective evaluation o f Dr Kings accomplishments and breadth of vi sion is the sheer momentum o f his initiatives as they were carried into the year 1969 and far beyond The SCLC was an Example (Southern who had no castle Christian Leadership Conference). Under the presidency o f former King a s s o c ia te . R ev R alph D avid Abernathy, the organization concen trated on ‘voter registration and edu cation'. and the 'organization ofthe working poor across the south ’, there were some successes like that cited by Reverend Andrew Young, the success of the Charleston Hospital W orker Strike' o f 1969. But. then, there was the failure o f Rev. Abernathy's "Poor Peoples campaign. Another former Dr. King asso ciate came full stage in 1969. The Rev. Jesse Jackson got his Operation Breadbasket into high gear in 1969, expanding its scope from simply ob taining jobs for blacks to new levels, first broached by Dr. King several years earlier. In both the south and the north. Rev. Jackson used the threat ofboycotts to obtain agreements with white merchants to store merchan dise manufactured by black-owned companies, to patronize black banks to employ black bui Iding contractors and to otherwise carry on ‘the work o f the master' in achieving spectacu lar economic successes. How soon some o f us forget. It could be asked where and how we dropped the ball—if. in fact, that is what has happened.. Some suggest that African Americans (and con comitantly white folks) have been the victims o f right wing plots and secret government agendas ranging al I the wav to drug saturation o f black communities. Whatever the case, it is certain that we cannot persevere or survive if we do not understand the genius within our group and accu rately define the agendas o f our best and brightest. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was a multifaceted genius (as they used to say about the African viziers and architects to the mighty Pharaohs). He not only possessed the spirituality and soul necessary to his endeavors, but he had the intellect and analytic ability to conceive, plan and execute the objectives that spoke o f his love for his people-better yet for all mankind. Each year we seem to miss him more and more as things further disintegrate and his footsteps are not filled Is there someone out there w ho can dare us to dream again0 who had no ships who had no armies who had a Dream. M a rtin L u th e r K in g Jr. 1 9 2 9 -1 9 6 8 TOYOTA / > * * * I
