Martin Luther King, Jr.: prophetic words worth carving into stone
We’ve all known that the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — most famously the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963 — was coming up, but for a while it looked like no group in Orange County would hold a large public event commemorating it.
Happily, that was an vacuum that human nature abhorred.
A group — no, actually a coalition of groups — calling themselves “We Still Have a Dream OC” — has come together over the past few weeks to put together an event. It will take place a week from this Sunday afternoon, Sept. 1, from 2-6 p.m. in Santa Ana’s Sasscer Park.
Now there will be. Coalition https://www.facebook.com/westillhaveadreamoc came together.
For those who like things in bold:
Sept. 1, 2-6 p.m., in Sasscer Park, (Ross and 4th St.), Santa Ana, California 92703
It’s not only impressive how quickly the event has come together; it’s impressive who has come together. Here’s a list of groups variously described as sponsors or endorsers:
NAACP-OC
MoveOn.org – North OC & Irvine
Women For: OC
Orange County Equality Coalition
IUCC Advocates for Peace & Justice
Islamic Shura Council of So. Calif.
DFA-OC
Episcopal Church of the Messiah
Progressive Christians Uniting-OC
Fairview Community Church
Progressive Democrats of America (North & South County Chapters)
First Drops Interfaith Children’s Choir
RebelliousTruths.org
Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries
New Hope Presbyterian Church
Christ Our Redeemer – AME Church
Tapestry UU Social Action Committee
Cousins Club
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – LA
Democratic Party of OC
Concerned Citizens of Laguna Woods Village
Laguna Woods Democratic Club
Network of Arab American Professionals – Los Angeles (NAAP-LA)
Jon Dobrer, Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Fullerton
Brea Congregational UCC Social Action Team
Reclaim Democracy
Islamic Center of Irvine
LA Jews for Peace
MANA de Orange County
Pax Christi Orange County
Los Amigos
LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) – Santa Ana
Industrial Workers of the World, OC Branch
SEIU-USWW
Operation Warm Wishes
Black in Orange County
One Global Family Foundation
Organizing for Action (OFA)
Orange County Counseling Center
CA Clean Money Campaign
GMO Free Orange County
National Women’s Political Caucus Orange County
OC NOW
OC Catholic Worker
AMWEC American Muslim Women’s Empowerment Council
Newport-Mesa Tea Party
Centro Cultural de México
Orange County Friends Meeting (Quakers)
Anti-Defamation League OC/LB
Youth-On-The-Move Education International
The Animal Rights Coalition
AIDS Services Foundation (ASF)
The Center OC
St. Mark Peace & Justice Commission
OC Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD)
OC Immigration Coalition
OC Human Relations
OC Peace Coalition
The League of Women Voters OC Inter-League Organization
Orange County LGBT Pride
The G.R.E.E.N. Foundation
ACLU of Southern California
Military Families Speak Out – So Cal
OC Labor Federation
California Common Cause
Jewish Voice for Peace – LA
Amnesty International USA – Irvine
The Left Bank of Orange County
This gives a sense of how many groups trace their influence back to the Rev. King. The predominance of religious groups (of various faiths) testifies to the importance of his prophetic voice. Even for those who are not part of directly religious traditions — political, labor, human rights, civil rights — this will be an opportunity to make good fellowship. Now — when, to update the quote, “one hundred fifty years later, the Negro still is not free” — it’s a great time for people who are offended by that reality to stand together and rededicate themselves to change.
“In 1963, current Congressman John Lewis—who nearly died marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama—was the youngest and most radical speaker at the March on Washington. When Lewis returns to the Lincoln Memorial to address the rally on August 24, he will be the only surviving speaker from that historic afternoon. “We have come a great distance since that day,” he said recently, “but many of the issues that gave rise to that march are still pressing needs in our society—violence, poverty, hunger, long-term unemployment, homelessness, voting rights and the need to protect human dignity.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/175757/time-march-washington-again
Achieving human dignity is not possible while remaining slaves to Wall Street and their cronies, – the Democrat and Republican parties. (The cronies include the cosponsors of US Senate, House, and State ‘reinstate Glass-Steagall’ resolutions that make NO mention of their co-sponsorship on their websites).
http://larouchepac.com/glass-steagall
Looks like I’ll be doing the music…
June 6, 1963 – Republicans in the Senate announced a position statement on civil rights legislation, a policy they would follow for the balance of the year.
It is the consensus of the Senate Republican conference that: “The Federal Government, including the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, has a solemn duty to preserve the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of the United States in conformity with the Constitution, which makes every native-born and naturalized person a citizen of the United States, as well as the State in which he resides.
Equality of rights and opportunities has not been fully achieved in the long period since the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution were adopted, and this inequality and lack of opportunity and the racial tensions which they engender are out of character with the spirit of a nation pledged to justice and freedom.
The Republican Members of the U.S. Senate, in this 88th Congress, reaffirm and reassert the basic principles of the party with respect to civil rights, and further affirm that the President, with the support of Congress, consistent with its duties as defined in the Constitution, must protect the rights of all U.S. citizens regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin.”
And pretty much all of the Democrats who opposed it eventually became actual or de facto Republicans, while the remaining Republicans who then supported civil rights could no longer stand their party.
I don’t deny that there are good Republicans, including many of my friends here. They no longer determine party policy, though.
Greg,
I just wish we could get either controlling party, to truly uphold all civil Rights and stop cherry picking which ones they want and which they don’t.
This is the very reason why many folks are looking to the Tea Party movement.
Many of us see that neither party is a viable “white knight” when it comes to real civil liberties and restricted govt powers. So, a lot of fed up folks went Tea party. You and others will disagree, no doubt, about the motivation, but I have good friends who are doing just that, for those reasons.
I’m more an quad espresso guy really, I have a little more pragmatic libertarian views. I believe that I must extend the same Rights I have, or want to have, to all other people, no matter where they are from or who there parents were, it’s all about who you want to be, to that end, we all have dreams, let’s try to get there together.
I met some Tea Partiers through Occupy. Some seemed like sincere reformers. Others seemed like recycled Birchers. As to the former, anyone who wants to pitch in on good legislation is my ally to that extent. I think that a lot of Tea Party philosophy isn’t well thought out; it fails to recognize that “governing” is not simply what is done by governments, but the exercise of power generally, whether Federal Reserve deciding what unemployment will be targeted or the husband who beats his wife with impunity.
The great libertarian politico Karl Hess, Barry Goldwater’s speechwriter, said that he had no more desire to serve the cashiers than the commissars. Bring me right-wingers who agree with that and we can talk.
One thing to understand is that there is no “white knight” — that’s sentimental and self-aggrandizing rubbish. If a third party gains strength it will be co-opted; parties may change, but interests are permanent.
Greg,
I guess I should feel special then.
Karl Hess and his life’s travails are very well known to me. Many of his ideas and actions helped to shape mine.
My beliefs are even more pragmatic than Karl’s in most areas and you still regularly dismiss my opinions, so I am sort of scratching my head over that one.
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican – and the ONLY black US Senater, was not invited to participate in the historic event, a spokesperson for the senator confirmed to Red Alert Politics.
http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/28/americas-only-black-senator-republican-not-invited/#ixzz2dJlHypwv
Once again, we hear the message of inclusion, but see something different in practical application.
Tim Scott didn’t know it was coming? He didn’t ask if he could be involved?
No — he probably didn’t go for fear (probably unjustified, given good-natured politeness) of being booed.
Other major Republicans were asked to participate and said “no.”
I heard that he farted.
Reflections of fellow Chilean American writer, Ariel Dorfman:
“We were living in distant Chile and didn’t even know that a march on Washington was taking place…The speech by King that was to influence my life so deeply did not even register with me….the murder of Martin Luther King in that Memphis hotel, and then came the first reports of riots all over America and, finally, a long excerpt from his “I have a dream” speech…
It was only then, I think, that I began to realize who Martin Luther King had been, what we had lost with his departure from this world, the legend he was becoming before my very eyes. In later years, I would often return to that speech and would, on each occasion, hew from its mountain of meanings a different rock upon which to stand and understand the world…
…as we watched the powerful of Chile impose upon us the terror that we had not wanted to visit upon them, it was then, as our nonviolence was met with executions and torture and disappearances, it was only then, after that military coup, that I first began to seriously commune with Martin Luther King, that his speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial came back to haunt me. Like the blacks in the United States, so in Chile we sang in the streets of the cities that had been stolen from us. Not spirituals, for every land has its own songs. In Chile we sang, over and over, the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the hope that a day would come when all men would be brothers.
The tactic worked because we understood, as Gandhi and King had before us, that our adversaries could be influenced and shamed by public opinion, and could in this fashion eventually be compelled to relinquish power.
Yes, so much has changed — and yet so little”.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175741/