1/17/2022
JRB,
It’s Martin Luther King Day. Thanks for setting a good example by putting carrots & apples into food boxes at Philabundance yesterday. It was nice of you to ask for the phone # of the teacher that the volunteer told you about. I hope you get a chance to call her today.
What were your thoughts about MLK in the 60’s? According to the NYT, at that time you were a “young man keen on bringing a bit of a 1950s sensibility into the 1960s” who had a “conspicuous psychic distance from the activist fervor of the times.” I suspect that you found him overly radical. I know my parents did.
I ask because several articles point out how MLK was controversial in his day & by the time of his death not popular in most corners of America. Several Black writers are critical of how hypocritical so many white Americans are on this holiday. Michael Harriot writes, “Today, your favorite vote suppressors will take a brief respite from disenfranchising Black voters, denying history and increasing inequality to celebrate a real American hero.” He points out that “whitesplaining ‘what MLK would have wanted’ is a favorite pastime of politicians and performative sympathetic social media ‘allies’.”
Many cringe at the way that MLK is quoted out of context & are frustrated that the latest abolition of CRT from the schools will prevent children from learning the full history of the civil rights movement allowing them to continue to be oblivious about the legacy of slavery.
As you know, MLK’s family wants today to be a day of action. They are sharing the 2022 message, “no celebration without legislation,” at their Peace March in DC today. I’m sorry that you didn’t join them in crossing the new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.
I will be discussing MLK & other issues as I walk with my teacher friends today. I will be curious to see if they read my letter to the editor about Myanmar & the threat of militarization which was published yesterday in the local paper.
BYBS,
