Posted on 01/23/2005 7:33:44 AM PST by Lando Lincoln
I have the guts to tell it like it was. No historical figure is or was perfect, as is no human. Many had skeltons in their closets...affairs, dubious liasons, etc. However, MLK was a catalyst for equal rights in America. He did not do this alone, but he was the one pushed forward as a leader.
Many can talk, as we do here; but few have the tenacity or public charisma to actually effect change. You don't have to love him, you don't even have to like him; however, credit should be given where credit is due. Martin Luther King opened the eyes to injustice in America.
Many gave their lives so that all America's children have the freedoms and liberties that they do. When people are praying for the troops that fight this day to stamp out oppression in the world, they pray for the troops as whole. There is no selection process in that.
Just as MLK himself was assassinated, maybe his character was, as well. Even if he was not perfect, he was human. He had the courage to follow through on his convictions, to correct an injustice. While some people may find it distasteful, he was not just a black leader, he was an American leader. That, IMO, is telling it like it was.
I believe that King's role was to step into and solidify a simmering movement already under way. King did NOT invent this movement any more than he directed Rosa Parks. The creation of the SLC was an attempt to create a coalition and obtain a unified front for the national media. King learned, somewhere, the tactics and techniques of doing just that. Because of this, he is pointed to as the luminary of the age in just the same way as Jesse Jackson is today and, of course, this was also why it was so important for JJ to steal the mantle and annointing ASAP.
Ah, so if we could only return the the world of the 50's then all that would go away?
Coleman Young. He was the best at fostering understanding.
The choice would be to hang these criminals without a trial, or record the crimes? Oh, that was not a written law. You forgot about those hangings, when blacks only needed to be suspected of a crime. I'll take today's society any day. Let's talk about the blacks today that succeed.
In other words, provide leadership and a voice to people who had been suffering too long under an unjust situation? So what was wrong with that? Character flaws aside, he did step up and provide that leadership. And he and other leaders with him paid a price for that in beatings and jailings and more than a few assasinations. Are we not a better country overall for it? Someone mentioned Justice Thomas and Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice before. Those three could never have risen to the position that they have under the conditions prevelent in the south, and much of the North, at the time of King and the Civil Rights movement.
Sad that MLK, has been diluted to Jessie Jackson, and Al Sharpton.
Truly, Black Monday.
See post #9:
"In the final analysis...it is up to the machinery of the culture to decide what he was and what he accomplished. So far, the Left has been in firm control of that legacy and they have sainted him with honors far, far beyond his ken. In any event, he was the lightning rod for social change and a good deal of that was good and necessary. A good deal of it, however, was just plain bad and we still suffer the ill effects of the 'moral' crusade of those times...In the future, the debate may be rejoined with the restraint of political correctness gone. Then the true measure of the man will be taken - when all those that would bludgeon legitimate questions are finally seen as the true bigots of the present age."
Well I'm always willing to learn. Just what of what King stood for was just plain bad?
"In other words, provide leadership and a voice to people who had been suffering too long..."
No, those are your words. What he did, he did because he was annointed by the national media - not because of his personal moral merit. Today's annointed leadership in the persons of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are products of the same machine.
Ask yourself this question: Why was the party of Jim Crow, the KKK, lynchings and all of the repression you speak about so closely allied with that age and movement in spite of their historic crimes and their actual resistence (Against CRA: %D's > %R's) to change?
Somehow Democrats and black leadership were able to conceal all of that history and baggage and transform traditionally Republican voting blacks into a stable of state dependent wards. Today, after nearly $6 trillion dollars spent in erradicating poverty and the supposed ills of racial injustice, we now have a legacy of more poor, greater social disintegration and demographics amongst black America that they may never recover from. All, I might add, as direct products of the "dream" as it was actualized by King and his fellow crusaders.
"Just what of what King stood for was just plain bad?"
A better question would be: What was good?
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. By using your yardstick of moral righteousness, any historic figure should be weighed solely by the content of their words - not by the content of their character or the consequences of their actions.
In my view, King role did that was positive little beyond reminding us of our Constitutional duty to provide equality under the law - something, I might add, Americans have ALWAYS led the world in. His abruptly terminated legacy and his followers have wrought positive mayhem in their zeal for the "dream" and its suppose utopia.
ping
Some people forget that the civil rights movement was not monolithic. There were groups like the Black Panthers who openly advocated violence. It is our good fortune as a country that Martin Luther King emerged as the most prominent leader of the movement. MLK was non-violent, and had the charisma (or whatever you want to call it) to convince others to stand up and be non-violent with him. Pretty extraordinary if you ask me.
As for his flaws - so what? As far as I know, there has only been one leader in the history of the world who was not flawed, Jesus. Reading the Bible reveals that God often chooses some mightily flawed people to do his work.
"For example?"
in contrast to that foolish statement, wasn't MLK booed and jeered at the watts riots because he spoke out against the riots.
The liberals have developed a cult of King, based on revised history that overlooks or hides the ugliness that was Martin Luther King, Jr. These are the same liberals who are trying to invent revised history to trash our Founding Fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and the great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln.
Go figure!
It is a shame that "is the Martin Luther King, Jr" you recall. I don't respect MLK for what the revisionist liberals do for, or against him. I respect the movement that he led.
I remember being five years old, and my mother telling me that there were separate bathrooms and drinking fountains for different people. At the age of five, I found that incredible. But then, I am from the North.
Isn't it ironic that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King were assassinated for the great things that they did?! Today, I am now much older than five, but I am just as incredulous that some people still just don't get it. More than that it makes me both sad, mad, and sick.
BTW, it is not only the liberals that revise Martin Luther King's life. There are many who gleefully use character assassination, just as they use bullets. I am thankful that these people are only few and far between.
If America ALWAYS held up its duty to provide equality, Martin Luther King would not have had a platform. The fact that there were many who believed, and still believe, that they are "chosen" Americans, is the reason that civil rights are even being discussed here.
It is not the truth that bothers me - no man should be idolized (See Lincoln, Lee, FDR, Reagan) because it ignores the truth and also make ANY critisism impossible.
I am just wondering about his motives.
I pick today, thanks.
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