Wednesday, October 31, 2007
"Memphis is Also America"
Posted by John Branston on Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 4:00 AM
It's quite illuminating. An excerpt: His movement, his life were Southern; but Memphis, where he died, symbolized more than the South. Its racial crisis of 1968 and its murderous failure were those of all America.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went there during the fifth week of a garbage workers' strike that had built into a civil rights movement and a dangerous crisis. The Memphis Negro community had not developed much of a civil rights movement during the early 1960s. So the movement that did come in 1968 capsuled into a few swift weeks the decade's history of white America's failure to respond to the nonviolence of Dr. King, and black America's recoil into despair and a violence of desperation ... Read it all at The Nation's website.
Comments (2)
Showing 1-2 of 2
It's worth reading Tom Jones' Smart City blog this week for an equally illuminating take on another piece of Nation journalism concerning Memphis' civil rights legacy... specifically D'army Bailey's shameful public fiasco regarding the NCRM's ownership and management.
like
dislike
The perspective from 40 years ago during the raging years of the "civil" rights era would be an interesting read if it was looked at as an example of the hyperbole and rhetoric utilized by advocates of a particular political philosophy. But to be read as the "truth" tends to stretch what the "truth" really was? As part of my job, I was walking on Main Street when I had to run for my own protection into an open doorway from the "peaceful" protestors. Those self, same peaceful protestors were painted in such an honorable way in the article. The preachers who threatened to "go fishing" that day knew what they were doing....they went fishing. The self-anointed author was quick to note that the folks involved in the protests were God-fearing people while their opponents were ---- my word here as a synthesis of the written words--- satanically inspired to contest what the annointed folks wanted. I'm not really sure what point the Flyer is trying to make by running the article...but it was an extremely poor choice during these times of hoped-for racial reconciliation.
THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUES
