Early Morning, April 4

(bumped. Also see Beyond the Mountaintop, a study of economic and poverty issues 40 years after the death of Dr. King.)

... shot rings out, in a Memphis sky,
free at last, they took you alive
but they could not take your pride...

And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.

And I don't mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I'm happy, tonight.

I'm not worried about anything.

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

Just to contextualize, Martin Luther King was in Memphis working with striking sanitation workers who wanted a fair contract from the city. He was a civil rights leader but understood civil rights as an economic justice issue, as an issue of equality, not just of humanity but opportunity. The workers were threatened and attacked and kept on marching for their rights. King's fight was for freedom of assembly, for equal protection, for justice in all its forms. To me, this was actually the most powerful portion of that speech:

Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively -- that means all of us together -- collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy -- what is the other bread? -- Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on town -- downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.

The power of collective action. The power of bottom-up organizing. The power of seeing a world where everyone is in it together, where everyone has a stake in one another. The power of fighting for justice and fairness and right, and moving mountains just by walking together. We get cynical in this medium a lot, and maybe we have a right to; after all, forty years ago they shot Dr. King for leading such a movement. But the legacy lives on, and I believe in his aphorism that "the long arc of history bends toward justice." This movement, this place where we've all gravitated, is but a small kernel of that legacy. But it's growing, and regardless of the President or the Congress or whoever it will continue to move forward. And one day, we will get there.


...oh yeah, just so you know, and want to tell a friend, John McCain voted against making Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday in 1983.

UPDATE: I guess people are killing Sen. Obama for not being in Memphis today, but I don't know, isn't it a measure of Dr. King's legacy that on this day, a black man is running for President in NORTH DAKOTA? Content of their character?