Too often, we are treated to a view of a romanticized Dr. King in order to fit the man and his struggle neatly within the prevailing political and economic power structures in a largely uncritical and non-threatening manner.
This portrayal of Dr. King has been mass marketed as an accommodationist figure and is now so pervasive in our schools, media, etc. that it threatens to neutralize and placate the most ambitious, daring and challenging of King's critique along with his struggle to confront and organize against not only racism, but economic exploitation and militarism-imperialism as well.
Due to such, SleptOn.com offers "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Struggling Not To Lose Him" as a direct challenge (as he would have it) to the views and practices of those who celebrate a thoroughly pacified legacy of a man who likely would not even be invited to his own birthday celebrations had he been alive today.
Given what he stood, fought and died for during his last years, it's reasonable to assume that he wouldn't eagerly embrace opportunities to share a stage with the very folks he would have vigorously opposed.
King said the following: "With Selma and the voting rights bill one era of our struggle came to a close and a new era came into being. Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isnt enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesnt earn enough money to buy a hamburger and cup of coffee?"
A familiar refrain, as of late, has been Rosa sat, King walked so that he (Obama) could run or some variation thereof. Was that the goal of King's struggle?
Thanks to: Glen Ford Brian Jones Robert Jensen Jared Ball Kymone Freeman Adria Crutchfield Gillian Moise.
