Keepin it Real For MLK!

Once again...it is the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday....The national holiday that was signed into law by as unlikely a President as Ronald Reagon and with the activism of R&B superstar, Stevie Wonder. With that said....What does it mean to you personally? You don't have to tell me anything about Dr. King...I was growing up during his hey day in public...I remember him ,when he was alive, going to jail...marching for civil rights in the south, being hosed down by racist lawmen...and sadly becoming passe amongst his own people near the end of his life after feeling as though change was taking too long...The words of Malcolm X and The Black Panther Party were beginning to become vogue in Black America by 1968...The year he died.

I'm afraid that a lot of people still don't appreciate the man or understand that he was more radical and frightening to the power structure than one might imagine. Malcolm X and his Muslims frightened the powers that be and The Black Panther Party terrified the powers that be...but Dr. King was actually persuading lawmakers to change laws...Dr. King was actually about to teach poor whites that they had more in common with Black people than they did with the conservative power structure that really wasn't serving their class interests....Read some of his last speeches...He wasn't just talking about civil rights...He was talking about empowerment, Economic empowerment, the sharing of wealth.... He was doing this before Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, H.Rap Brown and Stokely Carmaichel started preaching the same thing a little later....

You can google and you tube all of this. If you're old school..There are still some of his books available in bookstores and libraries that will bare me out. I'm not, but some people might even call Dr. King a socialist....oh heaven forbid...a curse word! Most of the wingnuts who accuse President Obama of being a socialist can't even spell the word, so I don't worry about them. I just feel that too many people worship Malcolm X (who I love, don't get it twisted!) and mis-understand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was in his own way, just as much of a revolutionary as Malcolm X..The two men just had different ideas on how to achieve essentially the same goal...Black self determination (Freedom) and basically Economic and Social justice for all human beings.

While you are at it...Check out Malcolm X's last speeches too..You'll find that he and Martin were almost on the same page...Almost. Unfortunately..both of these brilliant men died at a young age (They both were 39 years old when they died)before they had fully developed their total ideologies.

In closing, as you observe this day in honor of Dr. King...At least read up on the man...go past the soundbites and videobites that show the obvious and overstated visions of him. He was far more than just a crusader for "civil rights."