For You, Dr. King!!

[preciousjeni]

I wanted to pay tribute to this great man. Please post anything you like! What things have you learned that you didn't know? What will you be doing during this day ON (not day off)?

[preciousjeni]

I'll start:

1) Tomorrow I'm not sure what to do! I'm still looking into various service opportunities. Does anyone know of anything in my area (Nyack)? I don't want to have to travel into NYC if I can help it. I'm about broke as it is and it costs me upwards of $30 per trip to the city.

2) I just found out the Dr. King's Ph.D was in Systematic Theology!!!

3) King's Final Years Seldom Talked About

By Ashley "Woody" Doane
January 16 2005

Every year, I ask my students to share their images of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his work. The results are predictable. Students talk about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, the "I Have a Dream" speech and the civil rights struggle. For my students, it's as if King's assassination in 1968 actually took place shortly after the March on Washington in 1963 or after the Selma campaign and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

No mention is made of the last few years of his life other than his assassination. There is much to be learned from these years, especially for the majority of Americans who have no direct recollection of King's life.

Following the 1965 Selma campaign, King turned his attention to institutional racism and urban poverty in Northern cities. He spoke out against the Vietnam War as a tragic diversion of resources from the war on poverty. When King was murdered in April 1968, he was in Memphis in support of a strike by African American sanitation workers. He was also organizing the Poor People's Campaign - an interracial march on Washington to demand economic justice.

Yet the image of King today has been appropriated into a colorblind racial ideology. The essence of this colorblind view is that, thanks to King and the civil rights movement, race no longer matters in the United States and that racism, except for isolated hate crimes or prejudiced individuals, is a thing of the past.

From this perspective, we live in a society where all are - in words
often cited from King's "I Have a Dream" speech - "judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin."

And so, Martin Luther King Day becomes a celebration of victory in the struggle against racism.

Colorblindness feels good, but it is far removed from reality. The unfortunate truth is that racism and racial inequality persist in 21st-century America. Despite the very real accomplishments of the civil rights movement, we remain far from the realization of King's dream.

Subtle and not-so-subtle forms of racism persist in education, employment, housing and criminal justice. Residential segregation is decreasing, but at a glacial pace. School segregation is even increasing in some metropolitan areas.

From infant mortality to educational attainment to health care coverage to life expectancy, there remain significant gaps between African Americans and white Americans. Substantial racial disparities remain in such core economic indicators as income, wealth, poverty and unemployment.

But colorblindness is harmful in ways that go beyond denial. If we cling to the belief that race no longer matters, then racial issues are no longer legitimate topics for discussion. It becomes easy to condemn those who talk about race as divisive, overly sensitive or playing the race card. If racism is seen as a thing of the past, it becomes all too easy to explain away racial inequality as the result of individual failure. Ultimately, colorblindness closes off any meaningful discussion of racial issues and makes the pursuit of racial justice all the more difficult.

If King were celebrating his 76th birthday this week, I believe that he would still be speaking out against institutional racism. The "whites only" signs are gone, yet schools, courts and markets continue to reproduce racial inequality. I also believe that King would speak out against the senseless war in Iraq - as he spoke out against the Vietnam War in his final years - not only for its violence and cost in lives, but also for its role in draining dollars and energy from the needs of the poor.

In a speech in Memphis on the night before he was murdered, King said that he had seen the promised land, but that he would not get there with us. Decades later, we still have not reached the promised land of racial justice. If we reject the complacency of colorblindness and embrace King's entire legacy, then we may once again find ourselves marching in the right direction.

Ashley "Woody" Doane is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Hartford and co-editor of "White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism" (Routledge, 2003).

[Senusret I]

Martin Luther King, Jr., was an initiate of Sigma Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the Boston city-wide chapter. He pledged while a PhD student at Boston University.

In today's Washington Post, there is an article about the MLK Memorial Project:

The foundation working to build a memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Mall has raised a third of the $100 million in private donations needed and plans to begin construction in 2006.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan15.html

[Phasad1913]

I just found out last semester in my Property Law class that Dr. King was in preparation to make a speech in Seattle, Wa about economic parity for black people when "they" mobilized the effort to take him out. He was about to take the Movement to the next level which would actually bring about the true equality in this country: wealth building. As we can all see today true wealth in America sits in the hands of only a few and true opportunity and propensity to achieve wealth sits in the hands of only slightly a few more. We all also know, or at least we should know by now, that wealth and power in America originates with real property (land) ownership. Property ownership in this country among black people is not at a high number although that is finally (slowly) improving. Had he lived and had his vision been able to come to fruition at THAT time, things would be a lot different in lives of many black people and in the communities.

[Tom Earp]

MLK Day, I will be working as a small Business Man.

To be honest, I thought way back then, I that He was a total Radical. But, in retrospect, He was a Man who had an agenda for the good of not just Black or White, but of all Mankind.

Dr. King, Rest In Peace and realize that You did some good for Mankind.

[DolphinChicaDDD]

I'm doing a year of service in an AmeriCorps program and all of AmeriCorps members will be doing a day of service.

Our program decided to volunteer at Fisherman's Mark, a social service organization in New Jersey. They have a food pantry, clothing closet, etc and also have day care programs and housing referrels, stuff like that. Here's the website if anyone is interested:
Fisherman's Mark

My friend will also be leading a reflection/discussion session in the afternoon about Dr. King.

So if anyone is in the Lambertville, NJ/ New Hope, PA area...come stop by!!!

ETA: The building apparently went though LOTS of renovations, so we get to paint!! how excited am i??!!!

[bsp-mich24]

Friday 1/14 I along w/ 2-3 per period (9th grd English) read MLK,JR's I have a dream speech, then we read a bit more about his letters from jail etc. followed by a brief discussion.

No school tomorrow.

[sigtau305]

I will be Volunteering as a host for the Cleveland State University / Cuyahoga Community College breakfast bunch tomorrow morning.