Rev. Martin Luther King the Radical: Anti-War, Pro Family, Pro Union

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.nj.com/njv_john_atlas/2008/04/rev_martin_luther_king_the_rad.html

Posted by John Atlas April 06, 2008 9:46AM

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed 40 years ago -- on April 4, 1968 -- in Memphis, Tennessee. This event should remind us of the importance of unions like the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and others to the cause of civil rights. He went to Memphis to support African American garbage workers, who were on strike to protest unsafe conditions, abusive white supervisors, and low wages -- and to gain recognition for their union.

If he were alive today, I suspect he would be appalled at the widening gap between the rich and the poor. He'd be bringing together unions, clergy, and community groups to raise the federal and state minimum wage, enact local living wage laws, and expand health insurance to all Americans. He'd be helping America's working poor -- hotel workers, janitors, security guards, nurses and other hospital employees, grocery workers, farmworkers, and others -- unionize for better working and living conditions.

If he were in New Jersey he would be leading the NJ Time-to-Care Coalition's fight to create a family leave insurance program for all New Jersey's working families. He would be outraged that families are forced to choose between caring for their loved ones and paying for food and their mortgage.

He would be attacking our wasteful spending on the Iraq war urging America to bring U.S. troops home immediately.

We need to be reminded that MLK was not always revered in this nation. In a recent article in the American Prospect, Kai Wright resurrects these quotes. "The Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow," King lectured from the Alabama Capitol steps, following the 1965 march on Selma. "And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than a black man."

Kai also reminds us " The bloom started to wear off King's media rose when he turned his attention to Northern racism. The central defense Southern segregationists offered when thrust on the national stage was that their Jim Crow was no more of a brute than the North's. King agreed, and in announcing his organization's move into Chicago, he called the North's urban ghettos "a system of internal colonialism not unlike the exploitation of the Congo by Belgium." To some King sounded more like ....Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Nothing white folks can't stand so much as angry black men.

[MADem]

2. MLK wasn't always revered. But here's a surprise--someone, unexpected to to some here, who

supported his goals and was present at the March on Washington in 1963.

And I don't mean James Baldwin or Marlin Brando:



Not Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte, either:



Who knew?