Martin Luther King, Jr's Niece Reflects on Abortion at Birmingham Event

Life News ^ | 8/23/07 | Steven Ertelt

[wagglebee]

Birmingham, AL (LifeNews.com) -- Dr. Alveda King, the niece of legendary civil rights advocate Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., participated in the unveiling of historic markers Sunday at the church and parsonage of her late father, the Rev. A. D. Williams King. She said later the event caused her to reflect on King's life and the status of abortion in America.

The Birmingham, Alabama, church was an integral part of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, having been the site of several mass meetings.

"My father was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ensley from 1961 to 1965, when he and my uncle fought in the struggle to make equality of opportunity real for all Americans," Alveda King said.

"Even after my family's home at the parsonage was bombed, Daddy was unswerving in his dedication to God and to the cause of justice," King added. "While the ceremonies Sunday marked a historic period from our past, it reminded me of another kind of struggle for survival African Americans face today."

As King explained, that struggle has to do with abortion and how black Americans are becoming victims of abortion at higher rates than their white counterparts.

"In the last forty-plus years, 15 million black people have been denied their most basic civil right, the right to life," King noticed.

"Roughly one quarter of the black population is now missing," she reflected. "This hasn't happened because of lynch mobs, but because of abortionists who plant their killing centers in minority neighborhoods and prey upon women who think they have no hope."

King said abortion is a "great irony" because it has decimated the African-American population in ways the Klu Klux Klan never could.

"It's time that we remember the sacrifices of men like my father and my uncle who worked and died so that our children could live," King concluded. "It's time to stop killing the future and keep their dream alive."

[wagglebee]

Dr. King is proudly carrying her uncle's dream.

[wagglebee]

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[wagglebee]

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[Southack]

Hear, hear!

[11th Commandment]

You really did not need to post this, soon these comments will be picked up by AP, UPI, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and our pals at FOX.... (/sarcasm off)

[r9etb]

Good for her.

As an aside, I'm guessing that within that same time period, several million blacks have also been born out of wedlock, into conditions and a culture which give them very little hope of success in modern society.

It's not at all meant as a knock on this story, nor on her. I just think it would be interesting to know if this lady is also trying to address that problem as well.

[paltz]

King said abortion is a "great irony" because it has decimated the African-American population in ways the Klu Klux Klan never could.

The abortion industry IS the KKK. No great irony there. Same politics, different time, different tactics.

[Riverman94610]

When I was teaching in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans in the early Seventies,one frequently heard comment from my students was”only white girls get abortions.WE keep our kids”
I don’t know when that changed.I still think most black moms opt to have their children,man or no man around.Yet all stats recently show that black women are having abortions at as great a rate as white women.

[Responsibility2nd]

They don't call it Klanned Parenthood for nothing:

http://www.klannedparenthood.com/History_of_Abortion_Statistics/

In America today, almost as many African-American childrenare aborted as are born.A black baby is three times more likely to bemurdered in the womb than a white baby.

Since 1973, abortion has reduced the black population by over 25 percent.

Twice as many African-Americans have died from abortion than have died fromAIDS, accidents, violent crimes, cancer, and heart disease combined.

Every three days, more African-Americans are killed by abortion thanhave been killed by the Ku Klux Klan in its entire history.

Planned Parenthood operates the nation's largest chain of abortion clinics and almost 80 percent of its facilities are located in minority neighborhoods.

About 13 percent of American women are black, but theysubmit to over 35 percent of the abortions.

What the Ku Klux Klan Could Only Dream AboutThe Abortion Industry is Accomplishing

[rock_lobsta]

This deserves to be posted in its entirety. Some passages I find quite ironic, some others prophetic.

---

Family Planning — A Special and Urgent Concern

by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Recently, the press has been filled with reports of sightings of flying saucers. While we need not give credence to these stories, they allow our imagination to speculate on how visitors from outer space would judge us. I am afraid they would be stupefied at our conduct. They would observe that for death planning we spend billions to create engines and strategies for war. They would also observe that we spend millions to prevent death by disease and other causes. Finally they would observe that we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet. Our visitors from outer space could be forgiven if they reported home that our planet is inhabited by a race of insane men whose future is bleak and uncertain.

There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.

What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.

It is easier for a Negro to understand a social paradox because he has lived so long with evils that could be eradicated but were perpetuated by indifference or ignorance. The Negro finally had to devise unique methods to deal with his problem, and perhaps the measure of success he is realizing can be an inspiration to others coping with tenacious social problems.

In our struggle for equality we were confronted with the reality that many millions of people were essentially ignorant of our conditions or refused to face unpleasant truths. The hard-core bigot was merely one of our adversaries. The millions who were blind to our plight had to be compelled to face the social evil their indifference permitted to flourish.

After centuries of relative silence and enforced acceptance, we adapted a technique of exposing the problem by direct and dramatic methods. We had confidence that when we awakened the nation to the immorality and evil of inequality, there would be an upsurge of conscience followed by remedial action.

We knew that there were solutions and that the majority of the nation were ready for them. Yet we also knew that the existence of solutions would not automatically operate to alter conditions. We had to organize, not only arguments, but people in the millions for action. Finally we had to be prepared to accept all the consequences involved in dramatizing our grievances in the unique style we had devised.

There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist — a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions. At the turn of the century she went into the slums and set up a birth control clinic, and for this deed she went to jail because she was violating an unjust law. Yet the years have justified her actions. She launched a movement which is obeying a higher law to preserve human life under humane conditions. Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision; for without them there would have been no beginning. Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by nonviolent direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her. Negroes have no mere academic nor ordinary interest in family planning. They have a special and urgent concern.

Recently the subject of Negro family life has received extensive attention. Unfortunately, studies have overemphasized the problem of the Negro male ego and almost entirely ignored the most serious element — Negro migration. During the past half century Negroes have migrated on a massive scale, transplanting millions from rural communities to crammed urban ghettoes. In their migration, as with all migrants, they carried with them the folkways of the countryside into an inhospitable city slum. The size of family that may have been appropriate and tolerable on a manually cultivated farm was carried over to the jammed streets of the ghetto. In all respects Negroes were atomized, neglected and discriminated against. Yet, the worst omission was the absence of institutions to acclimate them to their new environment. Margaret Sanger, who offered an important institutional remedy, was unfortunately ignored by social and political leaders in this period. In consequence, Negro folkways in family size persisted. The problem was compounded when unrestrained exploitation and discrimination accented the bewilderment of the newcomer, and high rates of illegitimacy and fragile family relationships resulted.

For the Negro, therefore, intelligent guides of family planning are a profoundly important ingredient in his quest for security and a decent life. There are mountainous obstacles still separating Negroes from a normal existence. Yet one element in stabilizing his life would be an understanding of and easy access to the means to develop a family related in size to his community environment and to the income potential he can command.

This is not to suggest that the Negro will solve all his problems through Planned Parenthood. His problems are far more complex, encompassing economic security, education, freedom from discrimination, decent housing and access to culture. Yet if family planning is sensible it can facilitate or at least not be an obstacle to the solution of the many profound problems that plague him.

The Negro constitutes half the poor of the nation. Like all poor, Negro and white, they have many unwanted children. This is a cruel evil they urgently need to control. There is scarcely anything more tragic in human life than a child who is not wanted. That which should be a blessing becomes a curse for parent and child. There is nothing inherent in the Negro mentality which creates this condition. Their poverty causes it. When Negroes have been able to ascend economically, statistics reveal they plan their families with even greater care than whites. Negroes of higher economic and educational status actually have fewer children than white families in the same circumstances.

Some commentators point out that with present birth rates it will not be long before Negroes are a majority in many of the major cities of the nation. As a consequence, they can be expected to take political control, and many people are apprehensive at this prospect. Negroes do not seek political control by this means. They seek only what they are entitled to and do not wish for domination purchased at the cost of human misery. Negroes were once bred by slave owners to be sold as merchandise. They do not welcome any solution which involves population breeding as a weapon. They are instinctively sympathetic to all who offer methods that will improve their lives and offer them fair opportunity to develop and advance as all other people in our society.

For these reasons we are natural allies of those who seek to inject any form of planning in our society that enriches life and guarantees the right to exist in freedom and dignity.

For these constructive movements we are prepared to give our energies and consistent support; because in the need for family planning, Negro and white have a common bond; and together we can and should unite our strength for the wise preservation, not of races in general, but of the one race we all constitute — the human race.

[rock_lobsta]

Sorry, I forgot to include the link...

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/the-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr.htm

[paltz]

When I was teaching in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans in the early Seventies,one frequently heard comment from my students was”only white girls get abortions.WE keep our kids” I don’t know when that changed.I still think most black moms opt to have their children,man or no man around.Yet all stats recently show that black women are having abortions at as great a rate as white women.

The local gov'ts made abortions less expensive and more accessible. On top of that, more minority women are going to college than ever before. That being said, abortion became more of a reality for the same reasons white girls were having them...affordability, accessibility, and career.

[Pinkbell]

It’s so ironic that he supported Margaret Sanger. If only he could see what has happened now! Would he support it like Jesse and Al, or would he decry it like his daughter? I hope he would decry it like his daughter. She is doing a wonderful job for unborn children today. It’s a shame the mainstream media completely ignores her. I doubt they would if she was pro-choice.

[Riverman94610]

Sad but true.I don’t know if its possible to get those old standards of morality and decency back.Not just in the black community but all across the board.
I overheard some foul mouthed teenagers the other day at the mall.All were white but they could have just as easily been black,Latina or Asian.
We cussed a lot when I was a teenager also.Yet we dared not do it around parents or teachers.Butt whipping or suspension were sure outcomes for such behavior.
If we suspended every obscenity spewer today,classes would be VERY small.

[pankot]

Remember Margaret Sanger, who founded “Planned” Parenthood (sic), promoted abortion to get rid of undesirables and “defectives”, foremost of whom were, in her mind, Blacks. A real racist, she.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

My opinion of King is very low, I think had he lived he would of brought much shame to himself and his cause. For all his talk of God, I never heard anything of Christ. He is larger than life because he got shot and thats all.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Actually, Klan Parenthood and their allies are aborting black babies at 3x the rate of whites: African-Americans = 12% of American population, 35% of American abortions.

[Mrs. Don-o]

King was a Christian, a very conflicted one(like so many of us.) He referenced Jesus Christ frequently in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" (April 1963), in many ways a classic:

"Just as the eighth century prophets left their little villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

"We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights.

"A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.

"Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks, before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman empire.

"Was not Jesus an extremist for love -- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ -- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."

Was not Martin Luther an extremist -- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist -- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

"So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice--or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

"In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must not forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thusly fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment.

"Whenever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But they went on with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," and had to obey God rather than man. ... They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

"We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

"One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."

------------

Yes, he has flaws, but in this letter, as in the first chapter of his public life, he was certainly admirable.

[Coleus]

.

[George from New England]

Dr. King at UFL (Univ of Florida at Gainesville)

Good listen...

http://www.ctweddings.org/fl_rtl/king.mp3

Listen or download to your ipod player