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Remembering the Radical King by Carmen Trotta
Certainly this was the tack taken by George W. Bush at the White House commemoration this year. With little supporting evidence he remarked that the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “marked a turning point in the life of our country … , [t]he end of a century of slumber … On that day our federal government accepted the duty of securing freedom and justice for every American … We are now two generations and a world away from Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham, as [Dr. King] knew them.” This from the man who stole the presidency by effectively disenfranchising Black voters in Florida and who presides over a country in which 23 percent of Black people continue to live in poverty, and one-third of Black young men are under some form of control of a discriminatory criminal justice system. But few are taught that by 1967 Dr. King had proclaimed, “The dream had become a nightmare.” And more, that domestic poverty was materially and spiritually linked to U.S. militarism abroad—linked to the whole of the military enterprise, not merely to the war in Vietnam, which he called “disgraceful.” At New York City’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, in the speech known as his “Declaration of Independence from the War In Vietnam,” Dr. King remarked that there was “something seductively tempting” about viewing Vietnam as an aberration or a mistake. It was not that, he said; it was worse. There was “something more disturbing” emanating from the United States and spanning Africa, Asia and Latin America. “The need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia,” he said. “Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit [wherein] profit and property rights are more important then people.” King went on to demand a “radical revolution of values”:
In each of the 34 years since King’s assassination, this country has spent more on the military than on “programs of social uplift.” Through “structural adjustment programs” we have forcibly exported those priorities to much of the Third World. The United States thus may rightly be regarded as spiritually comatose. As we slumber, the evil that King unveiled metastasizes. The “individual capitalists of the [W]est” have networked more tightly and become symbiotically tied to Western governing bodies through the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund, the G7 powers and the World Trade Organization. Our slumber goes undisturbed. The vast majority of King Day celebrations do not remember him at all; in fact, they serve to dismember him and process him into a product of the “smooth patriotism” that he derided. Indeed many of the King “commemorations” this year—by social service groups, at public schools, an incredible number of U.S. military bases and a number of major corporations—reduced his message to the haphazard and superficial (or spurious) flinging a coin at a beggar. In a particularly startling example, the Raytheon Corporation, America’s third largest weapons producer and a major contractor and beneficiary of the “war on terrorism,” boasts that it has put Dr. King’s words into action by hosting memorial breakfasts in various cities and donating the proceeds to local charities. In Indianapolis, Raytheon employees donated funds to an Interfaith Hospitality network, prepared and served a meal to some homeless families, and purchased school uniforms for homeless children attending a public elementary school. The Real
MLK
All those commemorations revealed both the public yearning for the more radical Dr. King—evidenced by public participation that in every instance exceeded the expectations of the organizers—and a stunning sense of the up-to-the-minute relevance of Dr. King’s analysis and passion. • At WRL’s newest local, WRL-West in San Francisco, some 120 people gathered at the Catholic Worker soup kitchen to “celebrate the birthday of the antiwar King.” When the audience—young and old, Black and white, Latino, Jewish, Asian—read the “Declaration of Independence From the War in Vietnam” speech, all the listeners were moved at the pathos of a homeless Black Vietnam veteran reading the speech that amounted to an indictment of the crimes perpetrated, 35 years earlier, against him. Festivities followed, blessed by an Oglala Sioux elder; poetry, performance art and music were shared. Finally the inimitable voice of King himself boomed from an audiotape, reading from the Book of Isaiah of a day “when nation shall not lift sword against nation,” offering at the end his own assent: “… and I don’t know about you, but I ain’t gonna study war no more.” • Across the country, and well off the beaten track, in Windham, MA, longtime WRL activist Kate Donnelly and WRL New England staffer Joanne Sheehan were happily surprised that 45 people (“40 percent of whom we didn’t even know!”) attended a reading of the 1967 speech that sparked solid discussion of how he (and we) might respond to the present crisis. Sheehan also staffed a WRL table at Yale University’s Peabody Museum during the museum’s King commemoration. • In the heavily militarized city of Colorado Springs, WRL’s Citizens for Peace in Space local read the same declaration at the Pike’s Peak Justice and Peace Center’s monthly rally. The rally proved to be their largest yet, with more than 100 people attending. Two prominent members of the local Black community spoke of the need for radical nonviolence today (they have since become board members of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Center). Two local television stations filmed the event, but neither they nor the local newspapers deemed the event “fit to [air or] print.” • In San Diego, CA, and Houston, TX, WRL members led peace incursions into otherwise innocuous parades. The Houston Nonviolent Action local leafleted the parade with excerpts from the “Declaration” speech headlined, “What would MLK say about the war on terrorism?” WRL National Committee member Bob Henschen, surprised at how heartily the leaflet was received, remarked that while they’d never attended this parade before, they’d never fail to attend again. In San Diego, NC member Carol Jahnkow joined the parade with a peace contingent of 120 people. They handed out a leaflet asking “What would Dr. King think about today’s celebration?” Part of the leaflet read, “Why do we dishonor his memory and insult his work with a parade full of military bands, armed forces …? Now more than ever, as our nation is at war, thousands are losing their jobs, our civil rights are threatened and hate crimes are on the rise … Dr. King’s words ring … true: ‘It means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are interrelated.’” • In both New York City and Asheville, NC, King Day served as the backdrop to large antiwar events. In both cities, WRL people were key organizers of lengthy teach-ins attended by more than 300 people and complete with presentations on nonviolence, the bombing of Afghanistan, Islam and civil liberties. In Asheville, National Committee member Clare Hanrahan, fresh from six months at a federal women’s prison for protesting against U.S.-sponsored terrorism at the notorious School of the Americas, spoke of a punitive, counter-productive and exploitative “prison-military-industrial complex.” During Clare’s stay in prison, three guards were fired for “sexual improprieties”; women prisoners were forced to sew jackets for the U.S. Army and “whites” for Veterans Administration hospitals at rates ranging from $0.27 to $1.05 per hour. In New York City, the teach-in included movement luminaries Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness, Pacifica Radio’s Amy Goodman and activist-priest Father Daniel Berrigan, among others. Two days later, WRL organized New York City’s first nonviolent direct action since September 11, with 46 people taking over the entrance of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations to decry the U.S. military assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq. Excerpts from Dr. King’s declaration were once again read, interspersed with commentary and song. • In Ridgewood, NJ, WRL’s Root and Branch Collective joined the Bergen Action Network youth group for a 55-person strong teach-in, march, rally and meal. Black activists Larry Ham of the People’s Organization for Progress and Vietnam vet Greg Payton of WRL spoke. Greg talked about how the thorough segregation of his youth had actually kept him from experiencing face-to-face racism until he encountered it full force in the U.S. Army. His rejection of that reality led to his going AWOL and staying with an understanding Vietnamese family. There, among a people he’d been taught to regard as sub-human, he discovered, for the first time in his life, a viable culture. He continues to seek that reality here. • In Raleigh, North Carolina, longtime WRL member Patrick O’Neill, organizing with North Carolinians for Alternatives to War, pulled off a 500-person antiwar march in a chilling rain, beginning at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Garden and proceeding to the State Capitol. The march was led by Amber Amundson, who lost her husband Craig in the September 11 attack on the Pentagon, David Potorti, who lost his brother at the World Trade Center, and antiwar icon Philip Berrigan, who has spent an aggregate 10 years of his life in prison for acts of nonviolent resistance to U.S. militarism. That demonstration was also followed by a teach-in. The next day a group of 45 demonstrated against the war at Ft. Bragg, the home base for thousands of U.S. troops deployed to fight in Afghanistan. Five protesters legally entered the base and set up a small demonstration in front of its John F. Kennedy chapel as Sunday Services were concluding. One chapel-goer tore a sign reading, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,” from the demonstrator’s hands and ripped it into several pieces. The gentler base chaplain remarked to O’Neill they should take their message to Washington instead of to the soldiers. Shortly afterward, military police escorted the five back to the main demonstration. Carmen Trotta of WRL’s Executive Committee was an organizer of the King weekend events across the country. |
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the weekend of January 19-21 our nation was to commemorate the life and
witness of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the official celebrations almost
always mute Dr. King’s prophetic voice. U.S. children are taught only
to remember his 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech and its vision of a racial
harmony that has in fact never come about. 
