Martin Luther King Jr. Day - some thoughts and links

Today we remember Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the righteous fight to attain lasting freedom for all Americans. Below are some links and thoughts worthy of reflection.

Kevin Jackson writes about King's Real Legacy and what Dr. King would think if he could see our country today. Here is an excerpt:

King would have still have a dream today.  He wouldn’t want black people dependent on the government.  As before, King would want black people to get a fair chance at the American dream as promised by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
America is a very different America today, than when Democrats were writing oppressive laws against black people. King would be overjoyed to see that in “Alabama little black boys and black girls [sic] will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
“For Whites Only” is a thing of the past, and King would rejoice that in America today “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
King’s legacy extends beyond the gains made by blacks today, gains that are being squandered in a mad money grab by Leftist politicians, black and white. King’s legacy has manifested itself into a group hated by the Left, as much as blacks were hated by the Left back in the ‘60s. King dream today would undoubtedly be a vision of Tea Party movement.
King talked about the “fierce urgency of now.” How true those words remain to this day.  King recognized the tyrannical nature of the government, and he would be standing shoulder to shoulder with Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Herman Cain, Allen West, and many others in an attempt to free not only blacks this time, but the entire nation from the very same government that was oppressing blacks during King’s lifetime.
King would recognize that the oppression of government had not ended, but only shifted in an attempt to seize the entire nation; morphing as a virus would morph in order to survive in its host.
King would recognize the disease that has us discussing America’s racism in a time when America has a black president.  King would understand that a government suing one of its states for protecting the American dream can only be a malady of the brain, or a blatant sign of a government intent on enslavement of its citizens.
As King said back then, “We cannot walk alone…we cannot turn back.”

Read the whole thing

There's a great post from last year at Maggie's Notebook exploring the history of  how the Republicans thwarted the racism of the Democrats throughout our history. Read it HERE.

Daniel J. Flynn at Human Events reminds us about how integral the free market has been to the defeat of institutionalized racism in his article, Let Freedom Ring. Excerpt below:

Though numerous factors have made America the more racially tolerant country dreamed of by Martin Luther King, one overlooked force making the American Dream more inclusive is that which made the American Dream possible in the first place.

A truly free market works as an antidote to racism. Though contemporary radicals would vociferously deny this, their forebears vociferously charged capitalism with negating racism.

The Socialist Party's national committeeman from Texas noted: "You know that capitalism never examines the color of the skin when it buys labor power and I have seen white men walking the streets of the city of Dallas side by side with Negroes when the heat of summer was such that if the Negro could ever be offensive to a white man he must have been then. Moreover I have seen WHITE and BLACK working thus under A NEGRO FOREMAN."

Appeal to Reason, perhaps the most widely read radical publication in American history, equated socialism with segregation and capitalism with integration."Capitalism has forced [the white worker] to work side by side with the Negro, and for about the same wage," Appeal to Reason decried, "in the SIGHT OF THE CAPITALIST ALL WORKERS LOOK ALIKE."

The socialists were right. Capitalism and racism can't long peacefully coexist.

Businessmen motivated by racial solidarity rather than profits won't stay in business. Landlords limiting tenants by race, storekeepers limiting customers by race, foremen limiting workers by race limit themselves just as they limit those they discriminate against. In a competitive system, this is called a competitive disadvantage. Other landlords, storekeepers, and foremen not hamstrung by bigotry will benefit by widening their pool of tenants, customers, and workers.

I read a really nice post today at The View from Out Here titled A Glorious Dream  that I highly recommend, read it HERE.

The Waking Giant has a post chronicling the racist history of the Democratic Party HERE.

A 2006 article at human Events from Frances Rice is as important today as it was 5 years ago, Why Martin Luther King Was Republican, you should read it all, below is the final paragraph from it:

In order to break the Democrats' stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party's economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity.

Also by Frances Rice, is a must read about how the Democrats smeared MLK in the 1960s (pdf fle).

Here is video and the entire text of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Thank you, Doctor King and all of the brave men and women who came before and after you who bravely fought for true freedom for all Americans. Your sacrifices shall never be forgotten.

h/t U.S. Constitution Online for the transcript of Dr. King's speech and accompanying photo. 


This post was linked at SlapBlog, thank you, Herb! 
Nice Deb linked to this post in her excellent MLK Day Blog Round-up! Thanks, Deb!