“
Asleep by the Smiths
Vapour Trail by Ride
Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel
A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum
Dear Prudence by the Beatles
Gypsy by Suzanne Vega
Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues
Daydream by Smashing Pumpkins
Dusk by Genesis (before Phil Collins was even in the band!)
MLK by U2
Blackbird by the Beatles
Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
Asleep by the Smiths (again!)
-Charlie's mixtape
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
“
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
”
”
Theodore Parker
“
In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies...but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
”
”
Mark Long (The Silence of Our Friends)
“
For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America.
”
”
Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)
“
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
What if the church should be less concerned with creating saints than creating a world where we do not need saints? A world where people like Mother Teresa and MLK would have nothing to do.
”
”
Peter Rollins (Insurrection: To Believe Is Human To Doubt, Divine)
“
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.
”
”
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
“
I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
When you love poor people THAT MUCH, when you love 'working people' THAT MUCH, that makes you the freest man/woman in the country."
- Cornel West in explaining that Obama is A fulfillment of MLK's dream not THE fulfillment of MLK's dream
”
”
Cornel West
“
Poetry empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.
”
”
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
“
Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.
”
”
MLK JR.
“
Tell him that he and all of the other moderate Negroes who are getting somewhere need to always remember that it was us extremists who made it possible.
”
”
Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
“
He said he wanted to present an alternative; that it might be easier for whites to accept Martin’s proposals after hearing him (Malcolm X).
”
”
Alex Haley
“
In the years since his murder, we have transformed King into a kind of innocuous black Santa Claus.
”
”
Timothy B. Tyson (Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story)
“
Songs are the soul of movement! - MLK Jr.
”
”
Jon Meacham (Songs of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music That Made a Nation)
“
We have to stand up for what is right--
work, march, struggle for what is right--
but we must stay vigilant that it is for the good of all
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
because I was asking the wrong damn question. Every challenge I’ve faced, it’s been What would Martin do? and I could never come up with a real answer. But if I go with Doc’s thinking—Who would Martin BE?—well, that’s easy: you’d be yourself. THE eminent MLK: nonviolent, not easily discouraged, and firm in your beliefs.
”
”
Nic Stone (Dear Martin)
“
We have the option to either empower our existence with love, purpose, and beauty, or allow ourselves to become slaves to ignorance and agony.
”
”
Aberjhani (Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.)
“
We knew no one man had killed the prophet. Rather, the combined weight of racism and an absence of moral courage had crushed him. A constitution ignored, laws denied, these were the weapons. America pulled the trigger.
”
”
Marita Golden (Migrations of the Heart)
“
Age in just a number. It carries no weight. The real weight is in impacts. The truth is that you can do it at any age. Get up and be willing to leave a mark.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
An entire nation shook under the power of one man’s [MLK’s] dream! Now if one dream can do that for our nation, imagine what a dream can do for the Church.
”
”
Wayne Cordeiro
“
It's not the voice of my enemy which I will remember, but the silence of my friend" MLK
”
”
MLK
“
MLK was not generally revered during his lifetime;
He was decried and vilified by the mainstream (white) media.
MLK had Cassandra vision,
and was unstoppable even in death.
Less stoppable in death.
For MLK Day today,
please let's read his most challenging proclamations
and let us revere him for them.
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
White institutions are constantly communicating how much Blackness they want. It begins with numbers. How many scholarships are being offered? How many seats are being “saved” for “neighborhood kids”? How many Black bodies must be present for us to have “good” diversity numbers? How many people of color are needed for the website, the commercials, the pamphlets? But numbers are only the beginning. Whiteness constantly polices the expressions of Blackness allowed within its walls, attempting to accrue no more than what’s necessary to affirm itself. It wants us to sing the celebratory “We Shall Overcome” during MLK Day but doesn’t want to hear the indicting lyrics of “Strange Fruit.” It wants to see a Black person seated at the table but doesn’t want to hear a dissenting viewpoint. It wants to pat itself on the back for helping poor Black folks through missions or urban projects but has no interest in learning from Black people’s wisdom, talent, and spiritual depth. Whiteness wants enough Blackness to affirm the goodness of whiteness, the progressiveness of whiteness, the openheartedness of whiteness. Whiteness likes a trickle of Blackness, but only that which can be controlled.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
“
We whitewash MLK - how fittingly absurd.
I mean, we white-wash
everything.
We have to stop revering MLK for the wrong reasons,
sanitized,
domesticated,
like Santa Claus
and Jesus Christ.
He was vehemently anti-racism, anti-oppression,
anti-war, anti-materialism,
pro-union, pro-social-services, anti-capitalism.
Yes.
MLK believed capitalism had outlived its usefulness
and advocated democratic socialism.
”
”
Shellen Lubin
“
King and Gandhi had found a way to use aggressive impulses to resist injustice without hurting others. Where did the aggression go? The answer, as King would later tell Poussaint, was this: into the courage needed to resist without fighting back physically...
”
”
S. Nassir Ghaemi (A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness)
“
I don’t care where you are in America, if you’re on Martin Luther King Boulevard, there’s some violence going down. It ain’t the safest place to be. You can’t call nobody and tell them you are lost on MLK.” (If you do, they will say) RUN! RUN! RUN!
”
”
Colin Flaherty ('Don't Make the Black Kids Angry': The hoax of black victimization and those who enable it.)
“
...it is cruel jest to say to a BOOTLESS man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.
”
”
MLK JR.
“
Now is the time that we walk as humans and not as labels. Rise and walk, like did Rosa Parks, MLK, Madiba (Mandela), Honest Abe (Lincoln), Mevlana (Rumi) and many more.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth)
“
Aramaic has no vowels. So MLK spells Moloch.” “Or milk,” Deborah said. “Really, Debs, if you think our killer would tattoo milk on his neck, you need a nap.
”
”
Jeff Lindsay (Dexter in the Dark (Dexter, #3))
“
Ambition is like a plague that can only be cured by success.
”
”
Terrance Robinson- Artist Educator Scholar Entrepreneur
“
Just as you won’t enjoy the fruits of the tree you dislike, so you won’t even wait to learn from people you hate.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
You can't leave the show," King told Nichols. "We are there because you are there." Black people have been imagined in the future, he continued, emphasizing to the actress how important and ground breaking a fact that was. Furthermore, he told her, he had studied the Starfleet's command structure and believed that it mirrored that of the US Air Force, making Uhura --- a black woman! --- fourth in command of the ship.
”
”
Margot Lee Shetterly (Hidden Figures)
“
Whiteness constantly polices the expressions of Blackness allowed within its walls, attempting to accrue no more than what’s necessary to affirm itself. It wants us to sing the celebratory “We Shall Overcome” during MLK Day but doesn’t want to hear the indicting lyrics of “Strange Fruit.” It wants to see a Black person seated at the table but doesn’t want to hear a dissenting viewpoint. It wants to pat itself on the back for helping poor Black folks through missions or urban projects but has no interest in learning from Black people’s wisdom, talent, and spiritual depth.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
“
Post-Racial. Trans–Jim Crow. Epi-Traumatic. Alt-Reparational. Omni-Restitutional. Jingoistic Body-Positive. Sociocultural-Transcendental. Indigenous-Ripostic. Treaty of Fort Laramie–Perpendicular. Meta-Exculpatory. Pan-Political. Uber-Intermutual. MLK-Adjacent. Demi-Arcadian Bucolic. That is the vernacular of the inclusive, hyphenated, beau-American destiny we’re manifesting here! You and me! Book by book we’re making it happen! But it doesn’t happen by planting flags and picking at the scabbed-over wounds of a certain Dispossessed Neo-Global Cultural demographic committed at the hands of a onetime possibly improprietous proto-nation.
”
”
Jason Mott (Hell of a Book)
“
The postmodernist belief in the relativism of truth, coupled with the clicker culture of mass media, in which attention spans are measured in New York minutes, leaves us with a bewildering array of truth claims packaged in infotainment units. It must be true—I saw it on television, the movies, the Internet. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, That’s Incredible!, The Sixth Sense, Poltergeist, Loose Change, Zeitgeist: The Movie. Mysteries, magic, myths, and monsters. The occult and the supernatural. Conspiracies and cabals. The face on Mars and aliens on Earth. Bigfoot and Loch Ness. ESP and psi. UFOs and ETIs. OBEs and NDEs. JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr.—alphabet conspiracies. Altered states and hypnotic regression. Remote viewing and astroprojection. Ouija boards and tarot cards. Astrology and palm reading. Acupuncture and chiropractic. Repressed memories and false memories. Talking to the dead and listening to your inner child. It’s all an obfuscating amalgam of theory and conjecture, reality and fantasy, nonfiction and science fiction. Cue dramatic music. Darken the backdrop. Cast a shaft of light across the host’s face. Trust no one. The truth is out there. I want to believe.
”
”
Michael Shermer (The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths)
“
No matter the difficulty, no matter the danger. He inspire them like no other since or before.
”
”
Arthur Flowers
“
One of the first steps to successful leadership is to forget your age and remember your dream.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Ladder: Leadership Ideas from Successful Global Leaders)
“
One of the first steps to successful leadership is to always forget your age and remember your dream regularly.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
You don’t influence people by commanding them. When you are doing that, you are a manipulator and not a leader.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
Haters can never rejoice especially when their enemy wins. The moment you can’t be happy when someone wins, watch yourself. That habit is not good for you.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
Only in the darkness can you see the stars.
”
”
MLK JR.
“
the future of this country is all about patriotic, unity-inducing language. Post-Racial. Trans–Jim Crow. Epi-Traumatic. Alt-Reparational. Omni-Restitutional. Jingoistic Body-Positive. Sociocultural-Transcendental. Indigenous-Ripostic. Treaty of Fort Laramie–Perpendicular. Meta-Exculpatory. Pan-Political. Uber-Intermutual. MLK-Adjacent. Demi-Arcadian Bucolic.
”
”
Jason Mott (Hell of a Book)
“
Most of the world’s problems are caused by people who made education compulsory, but personal development optional. Because of them, we have many intelligent people who lack good characters.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. (MLK, Jr., Riverside Church, New York City, April 4, 1964) (Note: 50 years ago)
”
”
Anthony J. Marsella (War, Peace, Justice: An Unfinished Tapestry . . .)
“
There have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, that the means aren’t really important,” [King] said. “But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize the ends are not cut off from the means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in the process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.
”
”
Jill Lepore (This America: The Case for the Nation)
“
Ray: What else did they get rid of, truth, justice and the American way?
Leto jr.: Nah, truth ended when they shot M.L.K.. The American way died over in Vietnam.
Mitch: And Justice?
Leto jr.: Shit, man, there’s no justice.... There’s just us.
”
”
Brian K. Vaughan (Ex Machina, Vol. 2: Tag (Ex Machina, #2))
“
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.
”
”
MLK JR.
“
...if we do not know how to defend ourselves, our women and our places of worship by force of suffering, i.e., nonviolence, we must, if we are men, be at least able to defend all these by fighting." (MLK)
"...If given a choice between violent resistance and passive acceptance, King and Gandhi both accepted violence..."
"...like violence, it [non-violent resistance] was aggressive, but it was spiritually, bot physically, so."
"...At the same time the mind and the emotions are active, actively trying to persuade the opponent to change his ways and convince him that he is mistaken and to lift him to a higher level of existence.
”
”
S. Nassir Ghaemi (A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness)
“
We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action...If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
Svaki čovjek mora odlučiti hoće li hodati u svjetlu kreativnog altruizma ili u tami destruktivnog egoizma.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK, Jr Quotes: The Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.)
“
That old law about “an eye for an eye” leaves everybody blind.
”
”
MLK
“
If you hate to think, you are not different from some who is peeing on his academic certificates. The goal of education is to help you to think and lead.
”
”
Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
“
It doesn’t matter what you look like,” said the brave Bumbo McBlue.
“It only matters that what you say and that what you say is true!
”
”
JSB Morse (Bumbo McBlue Gets a Clue!)
“
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
The Oreo cookie invented, the Titanic sinks, Spanish flu, Prohibition, women granted the right to vote, Lindbergh flies solo across the Atlantic, penicillin invented, stock market crashes, the Depression, Amelia Earhart, the atom is split, Prohibition ends, Golden Gate Bridge is built, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, the Korean War, Disneyland, Rosa Parks, Laika the dog is shot into space, hula hoops, birth control pill invented, Bay of Pigs, Marilyn Monroe dies, JFK killed, MLK has a dream, Vietnam War, Star Trek, MLK killed, RFK killed, Woodstock, the Beatles (George, Ringo, John, and Paul) break up, Watergate, the Vietnam War ends, Nixon resigns, Earth Day, Fiddler on the Roof, Olga Korbut, Patty Hearst, Transcendental Meditation, the ERA, The Six Million Dollar Man.
"Bloody hell," I said when she was done.
"I know. It must be a lot to take in."
"It's unfathomable. A Brit named his son Ringo Starr?"
She looked pleasantly surprised: she'd thought I had no sense of humor.
"Well, I think his real name was Richard Starkey.
”
”
Melanie Gideon (Valley of the Moon)
“
Tyson emails back: “I’m going to tell you the same thing that I told Henry Louis Gates” (Gates had asked Tyson to appear on his show Finding Your Roots): My philosophy of root-finding may be unorthodox. I just don’t care. And that’s not a passive, but active absence of caring. In the tree of life, any two people in the world share a common ancestor—depending only on how far back you look. So the line we draw to establish family and heritage is entirely arbitrary. When I wonder what I am capable of achieving, I don’t look to family lineage, I look to all human beings. That’s the genetic relationship that matters to me. The genius of Isaac Newton, the courage of Gandhi and MLK, the bravery of Joan of Arc, the athletic feats of Michael Jordan, the oratorical skills of Sir Winston Churchill, the compassion of Mother Teresa. I look to the entire human race for inspiration for what I can be—because I am human. Couldn’t care less if I were a descendant of kings or paupers, saints or sinners, the valorous or cowardly. My life is what I make of it.
”
”
A.J. Jacobs (It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree)
“
The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.
”
”
Henry George (Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry in the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth... The Remedy)
“
There are hints of child sacrifice in Genesis and Exodus, including Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. Human sacrifice was long associated with Canaanite and Phoenician ritual. Much later, Roman and Greek historians ascribed this dastardly practice to the Carthaginians, those descendants of the Phoenicians. Yet very little evidence was discovered until the early 1920s, when two French colonial officials in Tunisia found a tophet, with buried urns and inscriptions in a field. They bore the letters MLK (as in molok, offering) and contained the burned bones of children and the telling message of a victim’s father reading: “It was to Baal that Bomilcar vowed this son of his own flesh. Bless him!” These finds may have coincided with the time of Manasseh, implying that the biblical stories were plausible. Molok (offering) was distorted into the biblical “moloch,” the definition of the cruel idolatrous god and, later in Western literature, particularly in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, one of Satan’s fallen angels. Gehenna in Jerusalem became not just hell, but the place where Judas invested his ill-gotten silver pieces and during the Middle Ages the site of mass charnel-houses. CHAPTER 5
”
”
Simon Sebag Montefiore (Jerusalem: The Biography)
“
And you told us: the storm is rising against the
privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no
shelter in isolation or armament
and you told us: the storm will
not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of
the earth enables men (and women) everywhere to live
in dignity and human decency.
”
”
Sonia Sanchez (Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems)
“
In their book Radical Reconciliation, Curtiss DeYoung and Allan Boesak unpack why this happens. They write, "reconciliation is revolutionary, that is, oriented to structural change." Which means, reconciliation can never be apolitical. Reconciliation chooses sides, and the side is always justice.
This is why white American churches remain so far from experiencing anything resembling reconciliation. The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don't challenge the status quo. They organize worship services where the choirs of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple of times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don't acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don't change the underlying power structure at the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they're not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, all the while preserving the roots of injustice.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
“
They organize worship services where the choirs of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don’t acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don’t change the underlying power structure at the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they’re not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, all the while preserving the roots of injustice.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
“
So, just to take King, because he's visible. On Martin Luther King Day, he's greatly celebrated for what he did in the early 1960s when he was saying 'I Have a Dream' and 'let's get rid of racist sheriffs in Alabama.' That was okay. By 1965 he was getting to be a dangerous figure. For one thing, he was turning against the war in Vietnam pretty strongly. For another, he was working to be at the head of a developing poor people's movement. He was assassinated when he was taking part in a strike of sanitation workers and he was on his way to Washington for a poor people's convention. He was going beyond racist sheriffs in Alabama to northern racism, which is much more deep-seated and class-based.
”
”
Noam Chomsky (Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire (American Empire Project))
“
if MLK and Gandhi and Bob Dylan can all be conscripted as neoliberal shills, then absolutely anything and anyone can be severed from their contexts and made to mean their precise opposite. The story beneath the story was the normalization of the disassociation between words from reality, which could only usher in the era of irony and flat detachment, because those seemed like the only self-respecting postures to adopt in a world in which everyone was lying all the time. And from there we were all primed to dive headlong into the sea of social media non sequiturs, the scroll that scrambles the narrative structures of argument and story in favor of a never-ending thought confetti of “this” and “this” and “this” and “look over there.
”
”
Naomi Klein (Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World)
“
And you challenged us to breathe in Bernard Haring's words:
the materialistic growth--mania for
more and more production and more
and more markets for selling unnecessary
and even damaging products is a
sin against the generation to come
what shall we leave to them:
rubbish, atomic weapons numerous
enough to make the earth
uninhabitable, a poisoned
atmosphere, polluted water?
”
”
Sonia Sanchez (Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems)
“
Whiteness constantly polices the expressions of Blackness allowed within its walls, attempting to accrue no more than what's necessary to affirm itself. It wants to sing the celebratory "We shall Overcome" during MLK Day but doesn't want to hear the indicting lyrics of "Strange Fruit". It wants to see a black person seated at the table but doesn't want to hear a dissenting viewpoint. It wants to pat itself on the back for helping poor Black folks through missions or urban projects but has no interest in learning from Black people's wisdom, talent, and spiritual depth. Whiteness wants enough Blackness to affirm the goodness of whiteness, the progressiveness of whiteness, the openheartedness of whiteness. Whiteness likes a trickle of Blackness, but only that which can be controlled.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown
“
But numbers are only the beginning. Whiteness constantly polices the expressions of Blackness allowed within its walls, attempting to accrue no more than what’s necessary to affirm itself. It wants us to sing the celebratory “We Shall Overcome” during MLK Day but doesn’t want to hear the indicting lyrics of “Strange Fruit.” It wants to see a Black person seated at the table but doesn’t want to hear a dissenting viewpoint. It wants to pat itself on the back for helping poor Black folks through missions or urban projects but has no interest in learning from Black people’s wisdom, talent, and spiritual depth. Whiteness wants enough Blackness to affirm the goodness of whiteness, the progressiveness of whiteness, the openheartedness of whiteness. Whiteness likes a trickle of Blackness, but only that which can be controlled.
”
”
Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
“
It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity, among American Negroes, was championed by jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of racial identity as a problem for a multiracial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls. Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from the music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down. And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For, in a particular struggle of the Negro in America, there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has
the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody
needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called jazz, there is a stepping-stone towards all these.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
One popular defense of the Founding Fathers says they were simply men of their time, flawed idealists for whom 'that was the culture then.' But in fact, they were not men of their time. The Founding Fathers were men of their color (white) of their status (wealthy) of their descent (European) of their time.
To say that the Founding Fathers were men of their time defines time according to them. It legitimizes their place at the top of the world--the origin of popular history--even if the leaders of other nations were more democratic and fair-handed.
”
”
Israel Morrow (Gods of the Flesh: A Skeptic's Journey Through Sex, Politics and Religion)
“
God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations. Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to
come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music. Modern Jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth, which flow through his instrument.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
And for all of Martin’s actions of peace and love, he was targeted with violence, harassed, arrested, blackmailed, followed by the FBI, and eventually murdered. For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America. Martin was the black man who asked for too much, too loudly. Martin was why white America couldn’t support equality. Because no matter what we ask for, if it threatens the system of White Supremacy, it will always be seen as too much. When we were slaves nursing their babies, we were not nice enough. When we were maids cleaning their homes we were not nice enough. When we were porters shining their shoes we were not nice enough. And when we danced and sang for their entertainment we were not nice enough. For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue, that our humanity must be earned. We simply don’t deserve equality yet. So when people say that they don’t like my tone, or when they say they can’t support the “militancy” of Black Lives Matter, or when they say that it would be easier if we just didn’t talk about race all the time—I ask one question: Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you believe in justice and equality you believe in it all of the time, for all people. You believe in it for newborn babies, you believe in it for single mothers, you believe in it for kids in the street, you believe in justice and equality for people you like and people you don’t. You believe in it for people who don’t say please. And if there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don’t deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place. Yes, I am a Malcolm. And Martin, and Angela, Marcus, Rosa, Biko, Baldwin, Assata, Harriet, and Nina. I’m fighting for liberation. I’m filled with righteous anger and love. I’m shouting, as all before me have in their way. And I’m a human being who was born deserving justice and equality, and that is all you should need to know in order to stand by my side.
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Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)
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Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.
A profound judgment of today’s riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, ‘If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’
The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos. Day-in and day-out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civic services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society.
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Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK, Jr Quotes: The Vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.)
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And when I speak of love I'm not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.
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MLK JR.
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And for all of Martin’s actions of peace and love, he was targeted with violence, harassed, arrested, blackmailed, followed by the FBI, and eventually murdered. For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America. Martin was the black man who asked for too much, too loudly. Martin was why white America couldn’t support equality. Because no matter what we ask for, if it threatens the system of White Supremacy, it will always be seen as too much.
”
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Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)
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Reconciliation is not a magic word that we can trot out whenever we need healing or inspiration. Deep down, I think we know this is true, because our efforts to partake of an easy reconciliation have proved fruitless in the world. Too often, our discussions of race are emotional but not strategic, our outreach work remains paternalistic, and our ethnic celebrations fetishize people of color. Many champions of racial justice in the Church has stopped using the term altogether, because it has been so watered down from its original potency.
In their book Radical Reconciliation, Curtiss DeYoung and Allan Boesak unpack why this happens. They write, "reconciliation is revolutionary, that is, oriented to structural change." Which means, reconciliation can never be apolitical. Reconciliation chooses sides, and the side is always justice.
This is why white American churches remain so far from experiencing anything resembling reconciliation. The white Church considers power its birthright rather than its curse. And so, rather than seeking reconciliation, they stage moments of racial harmony that don't challenge the status quo. They organize worship services where the choir of two racially different churches sing together, where a pastor of a different race preaches a couple times a year, where they celebrate MLK but don't acknowledge current racial injustices. Acts like these can create beautiful moments of harmony and goodwill, but since they don't change the underlying power structure of the organization, it would be misleading to call them acts of reconciliation. Even worse, when they're not paired with greater change, diversity efforts can have the opposite of their intended effect. They keep the church feeling good, innocent, maybe even progressive, allt he while preserving the roots of injustice.
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Austin Channing Brown
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Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church, he speaks out against the Vietnam War. People push back against King. They tell him he's not patriotic. In that speech, he says that there comes a time when silence is betrayal. He says he's about to say this criticism because he loves the country, not because he hates the country. He also, in the same speech, says America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. But he says it's going to be a bitter but beautiful struggle to transform America, because he says the goal of America is freedom.
Now, that's perfect. That's brilliant. That's beautiful. He's telling us all the different sides of our country and he's inspiring us to do something about it - right? - but he's also not calling us villains. He's saying that we can actually transform and create and build this beloved community. But King wants us to tell the story of poor people, farm workers. He wants us to end militarization and materialism and racism. So what I think, again, I think everything comes down to storytellers and the story, everything. And I - and I'm serious about that. And so we need to tell ourselves a different story about America.
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Peniel E. Joseph
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Liberty appeared to Minister Martin Luther King as a dream, let's hope it will not remain just a beautiful dream.
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Mwanandeke Kindembo
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Charismatic people tend to speak more loudly. They modulate their voices. They stand up straight. They gesticulate. Think of MLK on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
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Charlie Houpert (Charisma on Command: Inspire, Impress, and Energize Everyone You Meet)
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Should assaulting an officer of the state be a capital offense, rendered without trial, with the officer as judge and executioner? Is that what we wish civilization to be? And all the time the Dreamers are pillaging Ferguson for municipal governance. And they are torturing Muslims, and their drones are bombing wedding parties (by accident). And the Dreamers are quoting MLK and exulting nonviolence for the weak and the biggest guns for the strong.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Great people never sleep because their dreams keep them awake and striving.
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Terrance Robinson- Artist Educator Scholar Entrepreneur
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You can decide to refuse to allow people who aim at hating you to achieve their aims.
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Israelmore Ayivor (Leaders' Frontpage: Leadership Insights from 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Thoughts)
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Bet ya’ moms woulda twerked for MLK if he came down 138th and the Grand Concourse.
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Joel Leon (Everything and Nothing at Once: A Black Man's Reimagined Soundtrack for the Future)
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Post-Racial. Trans–Jim Crow. Epi-Traumatic. Alt-Reparational. Omni-Restitutional. Jingoistic Body-Positive. Sociocultural-Transcendental. Indigenous-Ripostic. Treaty of Fort Laramie–Perpendicular. Meta-Exculpatory. Pan-Political. Uber-Intermutual. MLK-Adjacent. Demi-Arcadian Bucolic. That is the vernacular of the inclusive, hyphenated, beau-American destiny we’re manifesting here!
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Jason Mott (Hell of a Book)
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Gamers play with vintage video games, including the Atari system developed by the black entrepreneur Jerry Lawson. (Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star/Getty Images)
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. (And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK)
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JUNE 17, 1990 Walter Mosley publishes Devil in a Blue Dress, the first of his hard-
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. (And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK)
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What did that Martin Luther King guy ever do for a white man? He was nothing but a black racist discriminating against whites left, right, and center.
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Marc-Uwe Kling (QualityLand (QualityLand, #1))
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Only in the darkness can you see the stars.
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M.L.K Jr
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It's time to be a hero, instead of holding out for one. The good people of history are all gone - MLK, Lincoln, Parks, Tolstoy, Teresa, Madiba and many more - all are gone, now it's time for us to be the new good people. We must be the new people - a new people with a new vision - a new people with a new perception - a new people with a rejuvenated and determined desire for equality, inclusion and assimilation - a new people bearing the torch of a new world, where religion is the people, philosophy is the people, salvation is the people.
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Abhijit Naskar (Martyr Meets World: To Solve The Hard Problem of Inhumanity)
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Wanna learn about modern United States - don't study me, study MLK. Wanna learn about modern Latin America - don't study me, study José Martí. Wanna learn about modern India - don't study me, study Narendranath Datta. But if you wanna learn about modern humankind, beyond borders and cultures - then you may grab my hand - not so I could give you knowledge or comfort, but so I could set you on fire.
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Abhijit Naskar (Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers)
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Wishing is great if you always back it up with action, otherwise it will remain just a dream. MLK can also learn from it.
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Mwanandeke Kindembo
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Daddy said, in 'I Have a Dream', this is a part that most people missed in his speech, 'We must forever conduct ourselves on the high plane of dignity and discipline.' He was talking about how we talk, too. Words are power. [...] Death and life and the power of the tongue. You can murder somebody with your tongue. So when people say 'I'm not violent' because they don't do anything physically, it's not that. For some reason, people think love is some namby-pamby weak kind of thing. It's not. [...] Nonviolence for us is a love-centered way of thinking.
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Dr. Bernice A. King
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If you can't run, walk.
If you can't walk, crawl.
In a world full of
Churchill and Columbus,
Be an MLK on call!
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Abhijit Naskar (Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One)
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It doesn't matter if your hair’s curly or straight,
Or your fur is blue or pink.
It doesn't matter if you're tall or short,
It just matters what you think!
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JSB Morse (Bumbo McBlue Gets a Clue!)
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King had marched six weeks earlier through the Mississippi town where the civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were murdered. He had called it the most savage place he had ever seen. Now he revised his opinion: 'I think the people of Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.
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Rick Perlstein (Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America)
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But there was a bigger picture that I didn’t quite see, and that was the all-out war on meaning that this new stage of progressive-cloaked capitalism represented. In the end, what mattered most about those campaigns was the boldness with which they were broadcasting that, from here on out, nothing means anything anymore: if MLK and Gandhi and Bob Dylan can all be conscripted as neoliberal shills, then absolutely anything and anyone can be severed from their contexts and made to mean their precise opposite.
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Naomi Klein (Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World)
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All said and done, in our headstrong struggle for inclusion, we mustn't also underestimate everything we have achieved so far as a species. As a matter of fact, we've come a long way since our tribal days of division and discrimination. Let me show you how. World's most beloved poet, Mevlana Rumi, was a muslim - world's icon of civil rights, MLK, was a black person - world's greatest inspiration of science, Albert Einstein, was a German Jew - and most recently, as of 2023, PM of UK and VP of US, both are of Indian origin.
So don't tell me, we've achieved nothing - don't tell me, there is no hope for integration! Integration is happening all over the world, despite the ancient impediments of intolerance and hate. Therefore, the question is not whether integration is possible - real question is, are you a part of that integration, or aren't you! Our home is planet earth - and here on earth, we all cry the same pain, smile the same joy, and live the same love.
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Abhijit Naskar (Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth)
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Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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MLK
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you? Sometimes I just want to prove I can do it. That I can make them comfortable, make them believe. But the question is always, Is it worth it? White institutions are constantly communicating how much Blackness they want. It begins with numbers. How many scholarships are being offered? How many seats are being “saved” for “neighborhood kids”? How many Black bodies must be present for us to have “good” diversity numbers? How many people of color are needed for the website, the commercials, the pamphlets? But numbers are only the beginning. Whiteness constantly polices the expressions of Blackness allowed within its walls, attempting to accrue no more than what’s necessary to affirm itself. It wants us to sing the celebratory “We Shall Overcome” during MLK Day but doesn’t want to hear the indicting lyrics of “Strange Fruit.” It wants to see a Black person seated at the table but doesn’t want to hear a dissenting viewpoint. It wants to pat itself on the back for helping poor Black folks through missions or urban projects but has no interest in learning from Black people’s wisdom, talent, and spiritual depth. Whiteness wants enough Blackness to affirm the goodness of whiteness, the progressiveness of whiteness, the openheartedness of whiteness. Whiteness likes a trickle of Blackness, but only that which can be controlled.
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Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
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But here’s the thing: Martin Luther King was not the “MLK” of his time, not the “MLK” of legend. Martin Luther King was public enemy number one. Seen as an even greater threat by our government, and a large portion of society, than Malcolm X was. Because what Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X fought for was the same: freedom from oppression. At times they used different words and different tactics, but it was their goal that was the threat. Their goal of freedom from racial oppression was and is a direct threat to the system of White Supremacy. And for all of Martin’s actions of peace and love, he was targeted with violence, harassed, arrested, blackmailed, followed by the FBI, and eventually murdered. For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America. Martin was the black man who asked for too much, too loudly. Martin was why white America couldn’t support equality. Because no matter what we ask for, if it threatens the system of White Supremacy, it will always be seen as too much. When we were slaves nursing their babies, we were not nice enough. When we were maids cleaning their homes we were not nice enough. When we were porters shining their shoes we were not nice enough. And when we danced and sang for their entertainment we were not nice enough. For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue, that our humanity must be earned. We simply don’t deserve equality yet. So when people say that they don’t like my tone, or when they say they can’t support the “militancy” of Black Lives Matter, or when they say that it would be easier if we just didn’t talk about race all the time—I ask one question: Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you believe in justice and equality you believe in it all of the time, for all people. You believe in it for newborn babies, you believe in it for single mothers, you believe in it for kids in the street, you believe in justice and equality for people you like and people you don’t. You believe in it for people who don’t say please. And if there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don’t deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place. Yes, I am a Malcolm. And Martin, and Angela, Marcus, Rosa, Biko, Baldwin, Assata, Harriet, and Nina. I’m fighting for liberation. I’m filled with righteous anger and love. I’m shouting, as all before me have in their way. And I’m a human being who was born deserving justice and equality, and that is all you should need to know in order to stand by my side.
”
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Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)
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There were two sides to the fight for racial justice: MLK was on one, Malcom was on the other. Malcom and Martin had always been presented in this dichotomy... Martin was on the side of love and equality; Malcom was on the side of anger and separation... This same Martin/Malcom dichotomy is applied to all people of color, and especially black people, who fight for racial justice. A few of us are good and worthy of support. Those who manage to say 'not all white people' enough, who manage to say please, who never talk of anger, who avoid words like 'justice', who keep our indictments abstract and never specific- we are the Martins. Those of us who shout, who inconvenience your day, who call out your specific behavior, who say 'black' loudly and proudly- we are the Malcoms.
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Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)