A King for Our Times

 A King for Our Times

by Davarian Baldwin | special to NewBlackMan

On Sunday, October 17, 2011, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood, arms crossed, gazing out over the Tidal Basin on the National Mall. Once again he was surrounded by tens of thousands of people. Only this time, he was 30 feet tall, ensconced in granite, and etched with quotes from his historic speeches. All had gathered for the dedication of the long awaited monument for civil rights icon Martin Luther King. Yet it’s important to note that like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, King’s monument dedication seemed destined to never happen. For decades the memorial faced struggles with funding. Once plans moved forward many then grumbled about the “political correctness” of placing a civilian, a common man, “who happened to be African American,” next to presidents. Finally, once the date had been set, the monument dedication had to be rescheduled because of the howling winds of Hurricane Irene. So in a way that best commemorated the legacy of King, his memorial faced a range of struggles and still…overcame.

Under clear blue skies it was apparent King had once again drawn a cross section of Americana to the seat of national governance. In attendance were Civil Rights stalwarts who had walked next to King, some now moving much more slowly and aided by wheelchairs or walkers. The sun-kissed crowd was a mix of young, old, some in strollers, some having no idea who King was, staring behind searching eyes only knowing that they were told they were attending an historic event. And to be sure, it was an historic event…for a number of reasons. Notably, an African American president presided over the proceedings from the podium while the distinguished Princeton University professor and public intellectual, Cornel West looked on from the audience. In a way, King had put a momentary hiatus on what had been months of political disagreements (some say more ego-driven than ideological) between these two prominent African American men, both inheritors of King’s dream. But more important than who they were, it is equally telling to track where these two men were “coming from” on that clear and sunny day.

Obama had just come from a “beatdown” by Republican representatives over the defeat of his long-term health care insurance plan. He even not-so-subtly referenced the “Occupy” events taking the nation by storm: “I believe he [King] would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there.” While West left the dedication and headed straight away to an Occupy D.C. event where an estimated 250 people set up camp on the steps of the Supreme Court building. He was summarily arrested for occupying public space to reportedly denounce the court decisions that have opened the door to greater corporate influence on governmental decisions. Many scoffed at the very audacity of West or anyone, but especially Obama, “highjacking” the memorial dedication and mentioning in the same breath King and the more than 200 Occupy protest events that spread from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to the Saskatchewan province in Canada. These caretakers of “The Dream” emphasize the “King qualities” of silent suffering in the face of violent attacks, attempts to connect with a larger moral conscience, and a “rights-based” appeal through official political channels. Therefore, mention of King in the same discussion of the Occupy events is dismissed as sacrilegious.

In a sense, once the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed, King’s relevance seemed to also pass. Therefore, the current struggles over health care, unemployment, the corporate control of government, the protests of various interest groups work against King’s grander appeals to an American “we.” But then those of us with any historical memory or those invested in social justice, scratch our heads and wonder precisely who is this King that has been memorialized in granite and in a sense frozen in time; caricatured at the “I Have a Dream” moment of his life and confined to the “content of our character” phrase for at least the last thirty years. What do we lose in the struggle to make the American public feel that a King memorial dedication stands in opposition to our current economic climate? We lose a King for our times.

We lose the 1967 King, who at Riverside Church in New York City defied the Civil Rights establishment to make links between what he saw as a colonial war in Vietnam with a failure to achieve racial equality and socio-economic justice at home. We lose the King who was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee organizing primarily Black garbage workers fighting for better wages and racial dignity as part of his larger Poor People’s campaign. We lose the King who said Progress is meaningless when the economy expands and stock values rise but millions of people remain unemployed or underpaid, without health care, a pension or economic security. We lose a King who described American capitalism as “socialism for the rich and free markets for the poor;” who linked urban poverty with suburban plenty. We lose a King that would comfort and rest beside those occupy protestors, as they sleep under the stars in open air encampments. We lose a King for our times.

Now I am not one who peddles in useless speculations about how King would vote or which political position sitsnearest King’s dream in 2011. But I do know what he fought for. Once those “rights” bills were passed, King knew the battle had to be waged on other fronts and he continued to fight. He fought for an “economic bill of rights,” calling for “massive public works programs (to build) decent housing, schools, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation centers.” He argued, these public investments would “enrich society” and spur private investment. I know that even at the end he still had a dream…

that one day all of God’s children will have food and clothing and material well-being for their bodies, culture and education for their minds and freedom for their spirits.

In my mind, this is the King for our times. This is King the Christian preacher and the world citizen. This is the King who openly admired American presidents and Trinidadian Marxist C.L.R. James. This is the King who made appeals to Civil Rights but when faced with urban northern poverty strangling black communities that had rights, he expanded his political vision to something greater. This is a King who saw the redistribution of state power and economic wealth as part of the American Creed. This is the King who understood social justice as an act of love and not mere sentiment. Perhaps if citizens had listened to all King had to say we wouldn’t be faced with such a daunting task ahead. And therefore as we dedicate a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. let nobody turn us around, let no one tell us who he is. King lives in our current struggles and remains a drum major for justice unfulfilled. We need his full legacy now, more than ever before.

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Davarian L. Baldwin the  Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College. Baldwin is the author of Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life (UNC, 2007). He is also co-editor, with Minkah Makalani, of the essay collection Escape From New York! The 'Harlem Renaissance' Reconsidered (forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press). Baldwin is currently at work on two new projects, Land of Darkness: Chicago and the Making of Race in Modern America (Oxford University Press) and UniverCities: How Higher Education is Transforming the Urban Landscape.

Michael Eric Dyson: In the Name of King

In the Name of King

by Michael Eric Dyson | Time.com

A year ago, as my interview wrapped with President Obama in the Oval Office, he led me to the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by Harlem Renaissance sculptor Charles Alston that he had installed near a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Obama's gaunt visage creased in delight as we gazed in silent awe on the face of a man the two of us baby boomers have acknowledged as a great inspiration. In the near future Obama will participate in a far more public recognition of the martyr's meaning when he speaks at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall. King becomes the first individual African American to occupy the sacred civic space dominated by beloved Presidents like George Washington and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. King's image on the Mall is a sturdy reminder that his story, and the story of the people for whom he died, helped to rescue American democracy and make justice a living creed. King's memorial is even more impressive because his statue rises 30 ft. high on a direct line between the likenesses of Jefferson and Lincoln, dwarfing those memorials by 11 ft. — it is one of the tallest on the Mall. Even in death, King is still breaking barriers.

Obama's words on the Mall will be framed by a bitter dispute over King's legacy in black America and its revelation, or distortion, in leaders like Al Sharpton and Obama himself. Sharpton has emerged as an improbable leader of black America and a more improbable defender of Obama, a status that challenges his prophetic credentials in some quarters. Sharpton tangled on radio in 2010 with television host Tavis Smiley over Sharpton's contention that Obama shouldn't "ballyhoo 'a black agenda.' " Earlier this year on cable television, Princeton professor Cornel West shouted at Sharpton that the voluble minister could be "easily manipulated by ... the White House" to become the "public face" of entrenched Wall Street and corporate interests.

If Smiley and West fear that Sharpton has become Obama's pal and not his prophet, they seek to take up the slack and press Obama about his neglect of blacks and the poor at every chance. Their relentless criticism has earned them rebukes from many black folk and the enmity of radio host Tom Joyner, who once championed the duo, while Joyner's colleague Steve Harvey derided the pair as "Uncle Toms." These vicious attacks didn't stop Smiley and West from hitting the road recently for a 16-city "poverty tour" to spotlight the invisible poor in the name of King. Unfortunately, the political and racial circumstances that gripped their crusade drew more press to them than to the poor. Obama, Smiley and West and Sharpton all claim King's example. Who makes the most of it is a complicated story.

It is both fitting and ironic that Obama presides over the cementing of King's status as an icon in the national political memory. Obama's historic presidency is unthinkable without King's assassination and the black masses' bloodstained resistance to racial terror. Obama embraced King's rhetoric of justice during his presidential campaign while eschewing his role as prophet. Presidents uphold the country; prophets often hold up an unflattering mirror to the nation. King may now be widely regarded as a saint of American equality, but he often had to criticize his nation's politics and social habits to inspire and, at times, to force reform. He helped to make America better by making it bend to its ideals when it got off course as its loving but unyielding prophet. Had he lived, King would have certainly hailed Obama's historic feat even as he took issue with some of the President's policies toward black and poor people. It would have been principled criticism rooted in an obsession with improving the lives of the vulnerable. To paraphrase Obama's favorite film, The Godfather, King's arguments would have been business, not personal.

The same doesn't appear to be true for Smiley and West. Smiley openly criticized candidate Obama for not attending his State of the Black Union gathering in 2008, and many believe the slight stuck in Smiley's craw and has led him to blast the President ever since. The notion is swatted away by Obama's appearance on videotape at Smiley's 2009 event. Smiley criticized Presidents Clinton and Bush too, though, it must be noted, not as visibly or vocally as he's done with Obama. Smiley has admitted that Clinton seems to him like a fourth brother, a closeness that may have tempered his criticism of the former President. No such restraints keep the media marvel from an intrepid criticism of Obama.

The same is true for West, a brilliant intellectual who has even more aggressively aired his grievances, calling Obama "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats." It proved a pattern: West's trenchant analysis of Obama's policies is often sullied by needless name-calling. West's gripes are sometimes disturbingly personal and laced with macho psychoanalysis and peals of wounded ego: disgust with Obama because West and his family couldn't get Inauguration tickets (West's complaint that the bellman who carried his bags at a Washington hotel could get a ticket when he couldn't undercuts his noble advocacy for working and poor folk); the perception that Obama was afraid of a "free black man" like West (a belief that may be unfounded in light of Obama's in-your-face dressing-down of West after a presidential address in Washington); and the hostility West unleashed when he said that he wanted to "slap [the president] on the side of his head" after Obama had ambushed and embarrassed him in their D.C. spat. West's loving heart may belong to King at his best, but his lashing tongue belongs to Malcolm X at his worst. His legitimate criticism is lost in the mix. (See photos of the civil rights movement, from Emmett Till to Barack Obama.)

Sharpton's evolution may put him closer to King the presidential dealmaker than critics of the supremely gifted leader and newly minted talk-show host have so far let on. Sharpton cut his prophetic teeth on urban protest as an unpolished version of his idol Jesse Jackson, courting controversy and combatting police brutality against poor and working-class blacks. The accoutrements of his guerrilla resistance included the jogging suit, the lavishly styled perm, the bullhorn and the shrilly amplified mantra "No justice, no peace." Sharpton's odyssey from stubborn outsider to ultimate insider is documented in the shift to well-tailored suits and a more modest coif. Sharpton scaled the ire of the white masses and the embarrassment of the black elite to become a savvy power broker with unparalleled access to Obama. It remains to be seen what Sharpton makes of his opportunity, but the fact that he has it doesn't mean he should be condemned as a sellout. In fact, his greatest contribution may be not what he makes happen but what he keeps from happening by being at Obama's ear or elbow.

Constructive criticism of Obama is healthy; demanding that he pay attention to the needs of poor folk and people of color is righteous. Confusing personal beef with principled criticism only ends up undermining the high aims of social prophecy. When critics call Obama names, they sound no better than the bigots who wish him failure and death. We ought to remember that as we celebrate a man who was a selfless prophet and soldier of truth before he was murdered and turned into a saint and statue.

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Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown professor and contributing editor of TIME, is author of April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America. Follow him at @MichaelEDyson.

Emmett Till and Dr. King's Memorial

Emmett Till & Mamie Till Mobley

Emmett Till and Dr. King's Memorial

by Eddie Glaude, Jr. | HuffPost BlackVoices

Emmett Till was murdered on August 28, 1955. They found his body horribly mangled at the bottom of the Tallahatchie River with a cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. Till had dared to break one of the sacred rules of the Jim Crow South. He "flirted" with a white woman. He was only fourteen years old.

Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till Mobley, decided to have an open-casket funeral. She wanted everyone to see what they had done to "her baby." The Chicago Defender reported that over "250,000 people viewed and passed by the bier of little Emmett Till ... All were shocked, some horrified and appalled. Many prayed, scores fainted and practically all, men, women and children wept."

On September 15th, 1955 Jet Magazine published, unedited, the images of Emmett Till. Black America was stunned. For some, this was the first visual image of the brutality of American racism. For others, the dead body of Till only confirmed the disease at the heart of the United States. America was sick. And Emmett Till was to become the sacrificial lamb, which sparked the modern Civil Rights Movement that sought to heal the nation.

What did Mamie Till Mobley want us to see when she decided to leave open her baby's coffin? What was she memorializing at that moment? Obviously, her decision called attention to the brutality of American racism. But I am convinced that she wanted to make visible all of those victims of American hatred who remained invisible. The nameless black bodies that lined the bottom of the Tallahatchie River and the spirits that were defeated daily by the systemic and dehumanizing experience of white supremacy were all captured in the brutally disfigured face of a murdered fourteen-year old boy. Perhaps she wanted that image to haunt the nation -- to force us to remember those who reside in the shadows. Those images defined a generation. And they, at least for me, continue to haunt.

On the exact same day, eight years later, an estimated 250,000 people engaged in an historic demonstration before the Lincoln Memorial for civil rights and economic justice. And it was here that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In some ways, that speech stands as a third "founding" of the nation. Just as President Lincoln's second inaugural offered a revision of the revolutionary beginnings of America, Dr. King's words expanded the very idea of American democracy in which the promises of freedom and justice would be extended to its entire people.

We have now honored Dr. King with a national memorial. But what are we to see and to remember when we visit this place? How are we to understand its connection to the death of Emmett Till?

All too often our memory of the March on Washington suffocates its lessons. Many see it as an affirmation of the inherent goodness of America -- of our progress towards a "more perfect union." But we are so busy patting ourselves on the back about how far we've come that we've turned a blind eye to the ugliness of America, in all of its guises, that continues to thwart the life chances of so many of our fellows.

That memory is also lost as those who claim Dr. King's inheritance use the anniversary of the March on Washington to project themselves as leaders. They urge us to engage in rote marches, while one after another wraps themselves in the shroud of Dr. King's prophetic sacrifice. All the while, suffering remains unseen as they revel in newfound access to the corridors of power.

In some ways, how we remember the black freedom struggle today is destroying parts of our collective memory. America's racist past has become too neat and clean; our dead have been ushered off stage. All the while Rush Limbaugh, Senator Tom Coburn, and others trade in the languages of its insidious offspring. And the structural legacy of racism continues, despite claims of personal responsibility, to deny opportunity to a significant portion of the American population.

Americans, especially African Americans, must not walk through the King national memorial without remembering our dead, without calling the names of those we know and acknowledging the nameless souls who sacrificed for a more just world.

This is why we have to return to the open casket of Emmett Till. How we remember our dead informs how we struggle on behalf of those who live in the shadows. Mamie Till Mobley taught us this lesson. She declared boldly, even after burying her child, that she did not have time to hate -- that she would pursue justice for the rest of her life. That open casket was about justice; those images of Emmett Till were to remind us about the never-ending fight for justice. And if we revel in the simple fact that Dr. King's image stands among the memorials in Washington, D.C. without remembering the fight for justice today then we have been taken in by sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, and we've turned our backs on our dead.

Follow Eddie Glaude, Jr., Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/esglaude

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Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. is currently the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. 

He is the author of several books. His latest book, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, has been characterized as “a tour de force.”