Religion
Related: About this forumBlacks say atheists were unseen civil rights heroes
By Kimberly Winston
Religion News Service
Updated 4h 58m ago
Think of the civil rights movement and chances are the image that comes to mind is of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leading the 1963 March on Washington.
But few people think of A. Philip Randolph, a labor organizer who originated the idea of the march and was at King's side as he made his famous I Have a Dream speech.
Why is King, a Christian, remembered by so many and Randolph, an atheist, by so few? It's a question many African-American nontheists atheists, humanists and skeptics are asking this Black History Month, with some scholars and activists calling for a re-examination of the contributions of nontheists of color to the civil rights movement and beyond.
"So often you hear about religious people involved in the civil rights movement, and as well you should, but there were also humanists," said Norm R. Allen Jr. of the Institute for Science and Human Values, a humanist organization based in Tampa, Fla.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-02-22/black-atheists-civil-rights/53211196/1
jaysunb
(11,856 posts)Can't wait til someone has the courage to discuss how the vast majority of the black religous community opposed King in the beginning, and not the sanitized and romatic narrative that"s being peddled.
darkstar3
(8,763 posts)dmallind
(10,437 posts)MLK gets the remembrance because people followed him, and listened to him, more than Randolph. Just like generals get the credit for ideas that unnamed staff advisors originate.
Sure it's right and cool to publicize the less well known efforts of nonbelievers obviously, but I doubt they are only less well known BECAUSE they were nonbelievers. Nonspecialists are ignorant of dozens of movers and shakers in the civil rights movement, of all levels of religiosity.
It's not the dismissal of atheists who worked in unsung roles that irks me, as long as the role would have been unsung regardless of the incumbent's faith. Instead it is the differential treatment and publicity of two people in the exact same role where the atheist is the one ignored. There is not one in ten remotely news-savvy liberals over 30 who does not know that Mathew Shepard was brutally killed because he was a despised minority, and wasn't spurred on to stand against that hate because of it. There is not one in ten of the same group who DOES know that so was Larry Hooper, and who reacted equally. That's the problem, not the fact that both Randolph and, say, Andrew Young are neither quite household names.