Here is an excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Powerful...

King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. 

Speaker celebrates 50 years since MLK "I have a dream" speech by comparing conservative SCOTUS Justices to KKK...

"Today there are no white sheets, but there are judges in black robes in the U.S. Supreme Court striking down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, opening the floodgates in many states to pass more voter ID laws... with the goal of ensuring we never see a black man elected to the president, or woman, of the United states of America."

Comedy Gold: SC Democrat Race Baiting Fail

Before you accuse another party of being racially insensitive for holding a debate on MLK Day, you should check and see if your party did the same thing four years ago.

Via Mediaite:

South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Dick Harpootlian objected earlier in the week on MSNBC to today’s Republican primary debate. Unlike the rest of America, he was not just objecting to the concept of having the watch the same candidates of the past year or so talk about the same things for another two hours– he considered it objectionable to have a debate on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and “ignore” the holiday. On tonight’s Bill O’Reilly, Harpootlian began to make the case, but was promptly silenced, jaw agape, as O’Reilly reminded him that the Democrats in his state did the exact same thing in 2008.

“Are you offended?” O’Reilly asked Harpootlian, who replied that he was not, but that he found the fact that Republicans had “no outreach to African Americans” a problem “in a state where we have an African-American Republican Congressman.” “Adding insult to injury, this debate ignoring Martin Luther King’s birthday!” he added, which made O’Reilly ask who was ignoring the debate and why. The Republicans, Harpootlian replied, because “no one has raised any issue with Fox about it being appropriate or inappropriate.”

O’Reilly then asked whether there was a reason for this– namely, something that happened in 2008. Harpootlian did not remember what happened in 2008 (a Democratic primary debate on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) and who sponsored it (the Congressional Black Caucus), which prompted several awkward seconds where Harpootlian was obviously caught flat-footed. With this development, O’Reilly then told him that, “by injecting race into this, you do a disservice.”

Keep on reading…

Eric Holder Race Baits on MLK Day

Eric Holder invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy to call voter ID cards discrimination against minorities. Eric Holder must believe minorities are too incompetent to be able to get and keep an ID. Prejudgement of the competence of a group of Americans is actually discriminatory. There is nothing discriminatory about getting an ID.

(Politico) — Attorney General Eric Holder used Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on the anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birthday Monday to emphasize the Obama administration’s dedication to protecting the American people from discriminatory voting practices.

“Despite our nation’s record of progress, and long tradition of extending voting rights – today, a growing number of citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that Dr. King fought throughout his life to address and overcome,” Holder said at an MLK Day event in Columbia, S.C.

Holder’s remarks in the Palmetto State come just weeks after the Justice Department blocked the state’s new voter ID law from taking effect, citing an unfair burden on minority voters.

Citing the “drumbeat of concern” he has encountered from Americans across the country about discrimination in the election systems, the attorney general vowed that the Justice Department was more committed than ever before to enforcing the Voting Rights Act.

Keep reading…

Ironic: NAACP chapter barred from Martin Luther King Jr. event

Apparently, there is bad blood between New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and local NAACP chapter President Danatus King. Rev. King is probably rolling over in his grave at this foolishness.

(Nola.com)- Even before Mayor Mitch Landrieu took office in May 2010, he and local NAACP chapter President Danatus King embarked on what has become a series of public clashes. The list of skirmishes grew by one last week....

Then last week, King accused the Landrieu administration of refusing to allow the local NAACP branch to join in a ceremony prior to a city-sponsored march on Jan. 16 celebrating the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"When you have an organization, the largest and oldest civil rights organization -- an organization that worked hand in hand with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King -- and they are not only overlooked, but they are denied participation, it's not only an insult, but a disrespect," King told WWL-TV.

The Rev. Norwood Thompson, chairman of the MLK Celebration Commission, told the station that King's request came too late for inclusion in this year's program but that the NAACP will be considered for participation in the future.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s children are shaking down the MLK Memorial Foundation

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great American. Sadly, the same can not be said of his children. They are charging the foundation building a monument to the civil rights leader on the National Mall about $800,000 for the use of his words and image. I wonder what the Reverend King would think of that arrangement? According to this AP story,

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has charged the foundation building a monument to the civil rights leader on the National Mall about $800,000 for the use of his words and image - an arrangement one leading scholar says King would have found offensive.

The memorial - including a 28-foot sculpture depicting King emerging from a chunk of granite - is being paid for almost entirely with private money in a fundraising campaign led by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation. The monument will be turned over to the National Park Service once it is complete.

The foundation has been paying the King family for the use of his words and image in its fundraising materials. The family has not charged for the use of King's likeness in the monument itself.

"I don't think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family ... I don't think any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington," said Cambridge University historian David Garrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of King. "One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C. that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny.