Dr King’s legacy belongs to Black America and all those that died, that faced the guns, the dogs, the bombs, the lynching and all of us that live under '21st Century slavery and apartheid' – Let the Jena 6 be the lightening rod and move the stilled waters!
Would Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. have wanted to see 100 million dollars spent on the construction of a 4 acre
If asked, the Black and White veterans of the Civil Rights Movement who were there with Dr. King during the summers and winters of hate throughout the earliest days of the Civil Rights Movement would answer a resounding no; the souls that were murdered on the path seeking economic, social, and political justice for Black Americans cry from their graves, a resounding no!
Dr. King’s Dream for the racially excluded, economically, politically oppressed and disenfranchised ‘Negro’ (Black American) surely did not include building a 100 million dollar ‘American Dream’ national memorial in his name! Who dreamed up this 100 million dollar project? Who are the real promoters and benefactors of this new national memorial? For more information about this 100 million dollar 4 acre D.C. National Memorial Project' and the project’s backers and dream weavers please visit www.buildthedream.org
Anyone who reads and understands Dr. Kings speech "Where Do We Go From Here?" delivered at the Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta, Georgia to the 11th Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August the 16th 1967 will see that Dr. King had moved beyond a Dream. He was throwing down the ‘gauntlet’ to what I like to call the Civil Rights Warriors. These are individuals, true Warriors, who are not blinded by the glitz nor deafened by the noise or silent about what is going on in
I have included excerpts from Where Do we Go From Here? The entire speech can be downloaded at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/voice_of_king.htm I urge you to download all of his speeches found on the site. Share them with family, and friends. It is very important that we understand the content of this most important speech as it provides a time-line and insight into the evolution of the mission and methodology.
Where Do We Go From Here?, echoes words from a time when real stand up ‘Negro leaders’ and Black America and our friends took the lead and chartered the course against the evils of racist America and its 20th century slavery without the need of a White board or chairpersons setting the agenda or giving approval or permissions, or endorsements. They seized the time! They drew a line in the sand which clearly showed the nation and the world who was with them and who was against them. More often than not, the line was drawn in the innocent blood of the demonstrators and freedom riders. It appears that today’s hyphenated African-American, has forgotten the strength of ‘Negritude’ and settled into some African-American world of illusionary integration and cultural and historical denial.
This new memorial is nothing more than a vain attempt at overshadowing and re-writing the historical facts and basis of the Dr. King led Civil Rights Movement and its supporters' valiant fight against the disenfranchisement, murder, racist oppression, and economic exploitation of the ‘Negro’ Black American! It looks more like a dream memorial altar at which America can come to atone for past and present sins; and foreign visitors can come and read the who’s who in corporate America that has their names engraved on the 'their' wall of honor as contributors. Is this some secret form of 'reparations' a way to say now 'get over it'!
The memorial was initially an idea put forth by Dr. King's fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha. The idea was put forth immediately after Dr. King's assassination in 1968. Alpha Phi Alpha proposed erecting a permanent memorial to Dr. King in
I do not believe the Alpha’s original 1968 proposal was for creating a 100 million dollar national memorial to some esoteric notion of world peace and universal brotherhood. It is more likely the Alphas wanted our government to totally finance and build a modest memorial remembering its greatest Civil Rights leader and the fact he fought against
This present generation of Alpha leadership has let their love for Dr. King and a modern day misguided love of idolizing heroes cloud their understanding of how to best memorialize Dr. King and benefit 'Negro' Black America and our institutions.
I believe, Dr. King surely would have wanted these funds to go to a ‘Negro’ Black American controlled endowment fund to support Historically Black College & Universities (HBCUs) so they could continue to educate generations of Black American youth to support his vision and continue the fight for the economic, political and social empowerment of the disenfranchised ‘Negro’ Black American. Are the handful of young Black leaders and professionals of this generation so out of touch with what Dr. King and the movement were all about and so caught up in 'corporate branding' that they have overlooked the reality of the current needs of Black America?
In 1996 the
At this point the Alphas should have said ‘no thanks’ to the Department of Interior and focused efforts on raising funds to establish a 100 million dollar endowment fund to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Were the minds of this current elite leadership clouded by some vision of great historical self importance or perhaps intoxicated by the fact they had been given permission by ‘the powers that be’ ‘to be the spook by the door’ and the ‘gate keepers’.
A point of further interest: in 1998 Congress authorized Alpha Phi Alpha to establish a foundation to manage the raising of funds for the memorial and its design. Congress also approved the building of the memorial on the National Mall. Why was Congress so quick to bless one Black Greek letter college fraternity to manage fund raising for a 100 million dollar 4 acre park on the national mall? Why wasn't the blessing given by congress and corporate
"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution of the
This current generation of the elite leaders of Alpha Phi Alpha and the elite leaders of the Black Greeks must reassess matters and now use their new found power of persuasion and the names of their organizations to publicly request the 100 million dollars to be raised be donated to a Martin Luther King Endowment Fund. Such a fund would assist HBCUs and empower them economically so they could continue to address the educational needs of the Black American students they were created to serve and the
It is not too late to have the approximately 80 million dollars raised to date to be used to establish a Dr. Martin Luther King Endowment Fund which should be controlled and administered in trust, by the HBCUs for the benefit of the "Negro' Black American students these colleges were originally established to educate. You may never get another chance at having corporate
Contact: Charles M. Greene Executive Director White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, HBCU Presidents and Chancellors, Members, President's Board of Advisors on HBCUs, Chief Financial Officers, HBCU Boards of Trustees, HBCU Sponsored Research Administrators, HBCU National Alumni Associations, HBCU Student Leaders, HBCU Organizational Affiliates tell them they must reconsider how best to memorialize Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. They must ask corporate America and the politicians that supported the memorial to place the 80 million plus dollars raised to date in an endowment fund as the fitting memorial to Dr. King and the objectives of the Civil Rights Movement to empower 'Negro' Black America. Email all the HBCUs alert them: http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/list/whhbcu/edlite-list.html
The young members of the Black Greek organizations and all campus groups should be stompin’ the yard on campuses across
The ancient Greeks and Romans built monuments to their idols and gods. Surely the elite leadership of the current day Black Greek Letter fraternities do not want to be accused of emulating the European and of supporting the wasting of 100 million dollars. (It's ironical that a national memorial to exploitation - the Whitehouse - was constructed by free slave labor!)
Unfortunately the Alpha Phi Alpha and the Black and White organizations have failed to realize this millions in donations is for a national memorial concept that yields no benefit for the economic and social empowerment of the 'Negro" Black American cause Dr. King and the Civil Rights Activist fought so hard for. The sacrifices of the Warriors of the Civil Rights Movement and all that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for have been hijacked and ‘branded' to be marketed’ by political and corporate culture thieves and spin masters!
I doubt that the all-star cast of Black celebrities that spoke, sang and danced on a stage in
The architect, engineers, designers, consultants, corporate sponsors are all feeding on the body of Dr. King and those who have died fighting the racist oppression of 'Negro' Black America. Where is the out pouring of corporate and Congressional support to provide 100 million dollars in grants to the HBCUs, or any of hundreds of initiatives to directly impact Black America’s inner-city youth's needs for education?
In 2001, the Martin Luther King Center, Atlanta made a legitimate request to the group controlling this 100 million dollar D.C. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc. to pay licensing fees to use Dr. King’s name and likeness in their marketing campaigns. Joseph Lowery, past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference stated in the The Washington Post, "If nobody's going to make money off of it, why should anyone get a fee?" This statement by Joseph Lowery was an insult to the
The King Center of Atlanta has a legal right and duty to earn licensing fees from Dr. King's name and likeness and use these fees to preserve the historical truths of the Civil Rights Movement and provide continued support to this new 21st Century Civil Rights Movement battle against the New Jim Crow. The King Center of Atlanta has a legal and moral duty not to waste any licensing income or any other
What Black America and grass roots and political leaders should now be asking is how much of the 100 million dollars to be spent on this extravagant memorial will be fees to be paid to the Design-and Build team and their joint venture partners. Ask who was paid licensing fees or given some other monetary benefit for the use Dr. King’s name and ask where the money went. If the King Center in Atlanta is not acting in a competent and exemplary fiduciary manner and failing to preserve the legacy may be it is time for sincere Civil Rights Movement Veterans or grass roots Civil Rights organizations and a Black American controlled think tank to petition to take over the King Center and appoint Trustees that will properly manage the assets and protect the legacy.
Dr. King surely would have preferred the target '100 million dollars' to go into an Endowment Fund controlled by and for the benefit of HBCUs. White corporate
We must remember that Dr. King was struck down, assassinated at the age of 39. He was just reaching his prime and his political, social and economic views were constantly evolving. The Black and White power brokers, liberals and conservatives would have you only remember "I Have A Dream" and sing and dance and join hands and dream on! A dream you are not suppose to ever wake up from!
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not go to
Read the following then ask yourself would Dr. King have wanted you to support raising 100 million dollars to be buried in the dirt. Or would he have preferred a 100 million dollar endowment fund be set up to directly benefit, support and empower HBCUs to continue their mission of educating ‘Negro’ Black American students and produce leaders to continue the Civil Rights Movement the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights Movement activists, and all men and women of good will loved, supported and served! Let
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The following has been excerpted from “Where Do We Go From Here?” ( Dr. King's August the 16th 1967 speech)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/voice_of_king.htm
Dr. Abernathy, our distinguished vice president, fellow delegates to this, the tenth annual session of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, my brothers and sisters from not only all over the South, but from all over the United States of America: ten years ago during the piercing chill of a January day and on the heels of the year-long Montgomery bus boycott, a group of approximately one hundred Negro leaders from across the South assembled in this church and agreed on the need for an organization to be formed that could serve as a channel through which local protest organizations in the South could coordinate their protest activities. It was this meeting that gave birth to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
... In this decade of change, the Negro stood up and confronted his oppressor. He faced the bullies and the guns, and the dogs and the tear gas. He put himself squarely before the vicious mobs and moved with strength and dignity toward them and decisively defeated them. (Yes) And the courage with which he confronted enraged mobs dissolved the stereotype of the grinning, submissive Uncle Tom. (Yes) He came out of his struggle integrated only slightly in the external society, but powerfully integrated within. This was a victory that had to precede all other gains…..
……In short, over the last ten years the Negro decided to straighten his back up (Yes), realizing that a man cannot ride your back unless it is bent. (Yes, That’s right) We made our government write new laws to alter some of the cruelest injustices that affected us. ….. We gained manhood in the nation that had always called us "boy."
…..For this, we can feel a legitimate pride. …. the problem is far from solved. The deep rumbling of discontent in our cities is indicative of the fact that the plant of freedom has grown only a bud and not yet a flower.
……….let us take an inventory ….
….Perhaps the area of greatest concentration of my efforts has been in the cities of Chicago and Cleveland. …….
….The most dramatic success in
……….. And finally, the ministers found that Negro contractors, from painters to masons, from electricians to excavators, had also been forced to remain small by the monopolies of white contractors. Breadbasket negotiated agreements on new construction and rehabilitation work for the chain stores. These several interrelated aspects of economic development, all based on the power of organized consumers, hold great possibilities …….. The kinds of requests made by Breadbasket in
…..And so Operation Breadbasket .…. It simply says, "If you respect my dollar, you must respect my person." It simply says that we will no longer spend our money where we can not get substantial jobs. [applause]
……… In
……Finally, SCLC has entered the field of housing. Under the leadership of attorney James Robinson, we have already contracted to build 152 units of low-income housing with apartments for the elderly on a choice downtown
....... we must face the fact, however, that the Negro still lives in the basement of the Great Society. He is still at the bottom, .. In consequence, Negroes are still impoverished aliens in an affluent society.
…… And the Negro did not do this himself; it was done to him. For more than half of his American history, he was enslaved. ….. His unpaid labor made cotton "King" and established
Now, in order to answer the question, "Where do we go from here?" which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes and representation declared that the Negro was sixty percent of a person. Today another curious formula seems to declare he is fifty percent of a person.
…..Thus, half of all Negroes live in substandard housing…Negroes have half the income of whites. …There are twice as many unemployed; the rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites; and there are twice as many Negroes dying in
……In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools (Yeah) receive substantially less money per student than the white schools….One-twentieth as many Negroes as whites attend college. Of employed Negroes, seventy-five percent hold menial jobs.
……To offset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. (Yes) Any movement for the Negro's freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be buried….. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation, no Johnsonian civil rights bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation. .. Yes, I was a slave through my fore parents (That’s right), and now I’m not ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave."….This [applause], this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling (All right) by the white man's crimes against him. (Yes)…….
…..Now another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in to economic and political power. Now no one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness (That’s true) and powerlessness. (So true) Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of the white power structure. The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power, both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. ….. the problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power, a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change...
……Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often we have problems with power. But there is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. .. we've had it wrong and mixed up in our country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power, and white Americans to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience. ….. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times. (Yes) ……
………….Now we realize that … the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. …….We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.
…The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes….
…..we are likely to find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. …. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle……
.......The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated….
…..And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth. [applause]……
….I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about "Where do we go from here?" that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. (Yes) …… one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in
…Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. (All right) These are the triple evils that are interrelated……
…..In other words, "Your whole structure (Yes) must be changed." [applause] A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will "thingify" them and make them things. (Speak) And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. (Yes) And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together. (Yes) [applause]
….Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. (Yes sir)
…Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.
…..Let us be dissatisfied (Yes) until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history (Yes), and every family will live in a decent, sanitary home. ………..
