The DISH
Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use
Vol. 11 Issue 2…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January 11, 2008
By John Burl Smith
Having been an active participant in the Memphis sanitation workers strike in 1968, examining Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy is inevitable as we approach his birthday. This year a new book, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign (2007) by Michael Honey, adds a different perspective, greater depth and clarity to the discussion. It will become required reading for anyone who desires to understand the development of the Memphis sanitation worker's strike, the forces that were at work when Dr. King became involved and how that involvement led to his assassination.
A labor and civil rights historian, Honey provides a meticulous account of not just Dr. King's role in the strike but a different take on the "Black workers, fiery black ministers, volatile, young, black-power advocates, idealistic organizers and tough-talking unionists." Honey observes that "Dr. King is always seen as "The leader and organizer' of the strike, but actually he came to Memphis as a favor to local ministers, who hoped his presence would force the mayor, Henry Loeb, to begin bargaining. Once in Memphis, Dr. King found a new mass movement that he thought could the push civil rights demand for economic justice for black and poor Americans to the forefront. That possibility rekindled the hope Dr. King felt was slipping away."
By early 1968, Dr. King was under attack from liberal whites angered by his criticism of Northern segregation, southern racists, who saw him as a troublemaker, politicians upset with his opposition to the Vietnam War, and black militants for his accommodationist approach. The moral force he generated in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama had given way to what his detractors saw as a cycle of violence -- white terrorism in the South and black riots in the North. Even some in his own organization grumbled about his commitment to the poor and dispossessed.
"Knowingly, Dr. King took a very dangerous road when he spoke out against the Vietnam War, and coming to Memphis, while planning a massive confrontation over poverty with the federal government in Washington DC with the "Poor People's Campaign." Although Honey alludes to Dr. King's dangerous stop in Memphis with the Jericho Road metaphor, he does not deal with what those of us closely involved in the day-to-day fight was very much aware of at the time and which FBI revelations have subsequently shown.
Most accounts of the March 18 street violence blamed the Invaders and other youth for the turmoil. But, now it is clear, J. Edgar Hoover's Counter Intelligence Program (Co-Intel-Pro) agents infiltrated the Invaders and instigated the riot. The riot was Hoover's way of trying to destroy Dr. King's credibility. Honey admits, "Dr. King was under tremendous attack from the American right wing -- the FBI and every other "intelligence" agency, the White House and the media," but his reasoning, "Why? Dr. King demanded a reversal of priorities and values -- away from racism, war, and profits for the few towards the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi," lacks specifics.
Meeting with the Invaders, the afternoon of April 4, 1968, Dr. King told us he knew Hoover was out to get him and was determined to stop him from forming an alliance with black power groups. Dr. King's plan, as he explained it to us, was to unite black power groups in all the major urban areas of the US in support of his "Poor People's Campaign." The Invaders was the first black power group he approached. Dr. King reasoned, "With such a base, I can carry a million people to Washington and the federal government would have to listen to black people's demands."
Dr. King's proposed alliance with black power advocates is the reason many believe he was assassinated a few hours after meeting with the Invaders. Dr. Honey's book will go a long way in reopening the discussion of Dr. King's legacy and rekindling the demand for a full investigation of Hoover and Co-Intel-Pro's role in Dr. King's assassination. Killing the dreamer, Hoover stopped the most powerful force for change in America since the Civil War. Going Down Jericho Road is testimony to that fact, and Dr. Honey deserves a great deal of credit for his effort. (Sources: www.washingtonpost.com, www.libraryjournal.com and www.wifp.org)
Remembering A Life
By Nordette Adams
I remember him in the misted vision of toddler years
and again in girlhood, the booming voice on TV,
someone grown-ups talked about,
eyelids flapped wide.
Elders huddled 'round the screen enraptured,
in fear for him, in awe.
I remember him.
His words swept the land, singing our passion.
Dogs growled in streets. Men in sheets.
Police battering my people. (Water, a weapon.)
Yet my people would
rejoice... And mourn.
I remember him, a fearsome warrior crying peace,
a man--blemished by clay, the stain of sin as
any other, calling on the Rock-
Death's sickle on his coat tails,
yet he spied glory.
Shall we walk again and remember him,
not as the Madison Avenuers do,
but in solitude and hope
with acts of courage and compassion,
with lives of greater scope
carving fresh paths of righteousness?
I remember.
John Oliver Killens
Born in Macon, Georgia, January 14, 1916 marks the birthday of John Oliver
Killens. Son of Charles Myles, Sr., and Willie Lee (Coleman) Killens, he was an
avid reader as a child. Killens grew up in a literary-loving household; his
mother served as president of the local chapter of the Dunbar Literary Club,
which was devoted to the works of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Early in life, he
planned to become a doctor, but was drawn to the labor-union movement and
decided to study law. While he took college courses, Killens never earned a
degree.
From 1936 to 1942, Killens studied nights at Terrell Law School, Columbia University and New York University. He worked as a staff member of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, DC (1936-42). World War II military service interrupted his pursuit of a legal career. After serving with the South Pacific Amphibian Forces (1942-45), Killens ended up in New York City as a student, political organizer and freelance writer.
Co-founder and past chairperson of the Harlem Writers Guild (1952), Killens served as writer in residence at Fisk University (1965-68), Columbia University (1970-73), Howard University (1971-72), Bronx Community College (1979-81), and Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York (1981-87). Killens lectured and taught creative writing at New School for Social Research and several other colleges and universities, including Southern University, Cornell University, Rutgers University, University of California, Los Angeles, Tufts University, Savannah State, Springfield and Trinity Colleges and Western Michigan University.
Published in 1954, Killens' first novel "Youngblood" chronicles the lives of the Youngblood family in fictional Crossroads, Georgia from the Jim Crow era of the early 1900s to the Great Depression. Published in 1963, his second novel, "And Then We Had Thunder," is the WWII story of black soldiers serving their country by fighting fascism abroad and racism within the US military.
Between his first two novels, Killens worked as a freelance writer. He was a regular contributor to Ebony, Black World, Library Journal, Nation, Saturday Evening Post, Black Scholar and Redbook. A close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists, Killens participated in the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott; and with fellow writer John Henrik Clarke, he worked with Malcolm X to found the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He co-authored with Nelson Gidding the screenplay Odds Against Tomorrow, which was made into a 1959 film, starring Harry Belafonte as a gambler that teams up with a racist ex-convict to rob a bank.
Killen's wrote a "Black Mans Burden (1965)," a series of essays on racism in the USA. His novel 'Sippi (1967) focused on the 1960s civil rights struggles of a group of black college students that challenged the discriminatory laws and practices, which discouraged or prevented blacks from voting prior to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. His other novels include Slaves (1969), The Cotillion; or, One Good Bull Is Half the Herd (1971). With Loften Mitchell, Killens wrote the play Ballad of the Winter Soldier (1964), Lower Than the Angels (1965) and Cotillion (1975) (based on his novel), Great Gittin' Up Morning: A Biography of Denmark Vesey (1972) and A Man Ain't Nothin' but a Man: The Adventures of John Henry (1975). His final work, The Great Black Russian: A Novel on the Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin, was published posthumously (1989).
An important figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, Killens created the Black Writer's Conference at Medgar Evers College. He was a member of the American Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN), Vice President of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters and board member of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Killens was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for And Then We Heard the Thunder and The Cotillion; or, One Good Bull Is Half the Herd (1971).
Killens received the Harlem Writers Guild Award (1978), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1980); and Before Columbus Foundation, Lifetime Achievement Award (1986). He was elected to Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame. Killens married Grace Ward Jones; the couple had two children. He died in Brooklyn, NY on October 27, 1987. (Sources: www.answers.com, http://aalbc.com and www.aaregistry.com)
Returning to school after a long hiatus is never easy, especially when you are a night person. After two weeks of staying up late and sleeping in, the Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro could barely function the first day back. When queried for comments, the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro said, "Super heroes get no slack!"
Great Story...A Baby's Hug
By Anonymous
We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat Erik in a high chair and noticed everyone was quietly sitting and talking. Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, 'Hi.' He pounded his fat baby hands on the high chair tray. His eyes were crinkled in laughter and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin, as he wriggled and giggled with merriment.
I looked around and saw the source of his merriment. It was a man whose pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast and his toes poked out of would-be shoes. His shirt was dirty and his hair was uncombed and unwashed. His whiskers were too short to be called a beard and his nose was so varicose it looked like a road map.
We were too far from him to smell, but I was sure he smelled. His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists. 'Hi there, baby; hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster,' the man said to Erik.
My husband and I exchanged looks, 'What do we do?' Erik continued to laugh and answer, 'Hi.'
Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man. The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby. Our meal came and the man began shouting from across the room, 'Do ya patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek- a-boo.'
Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk. My husband and I were embarrassed. We ate in silence; all except for Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skid-row bum, who in turn, reciprocated with his cute comments.
We finally got through the meal and headed for the door. My husband went to pay the check and told me to meet him in the parking lot. The old man sat poised between me and the door. 'Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik,' I prayed. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to sidestep him and avoid any air he might be breathing. As I did, Erik leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby's 'pick-me-up' position. Before I could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from my arms to the man.
Suddenly a very old smelly man and a very young baby consummated their love and kinship. Erik in an act of total trust, love, and submission laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder. The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, pain, and hard labor, cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back. No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time.
I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms and his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, 'You take care of this baby.' Somehow I managed, 'I will,' from a throat that contained a stone.
He pried Erik from his chest, lovingly and longingly, as though he were in pain. I received my baby, and the man said, 'God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift.'
I said nothing more than a muttered thanks. With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car. My husband was wondering why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly, and why I was saying, 'My God, my God, forgive me.'
I had just witnessed Christ's love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgment; a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes. I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who was not. I felt it was God asking, 'Are you willing to share your son for a moment?' when He shared His for all eternity. The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me, 'To enter the Kingdom of God, we must become as little children.'
If this has blessed you, please
bless others by sending it on. Sometimes, it takes a child to remind us of what
is really important. We must remember who we are, where we came from and, most
importantly, how we feel about others. The clothes on your back or the car that
you drive or the house that you live in does not define you at all; it is how
you treat your fellow man that identifies who you are.
About Me: This great story was sent to The DISH via one of the many lists to which it subscribes. There was no author's name and the link at the end of the story, http://mythoughtsblog.eponym.com/blog, provides no additional information.
Disgruntled says:
In the past two national elections, 2004 and 2006, foreign policy, particularly
as it related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the war on terror,
dominated the political conversation. The state of the economy was relegated to
a back burner, even though economic conditions on the ground were undergoing
significant deterioration. Under the Bush administration, millions of jobs in
manufacturing were lost, jobs that provided middle-class wages, while the jobs
that were created in primarily the service sector paid substantially less. In
addition, too few were created to absorb all currently seeking employment and
new job market entrants. On top of this, the Bush administration used a ton of
feel good optimism about its tax cuts and the publication of dubious economic
numbers to make conditions appear better than reality warranted. Now that the
housing bubble has burst and the subprime mortgage crisis has been exposed, it
is difficult to be so optimistic about the economy in the near term. Also, it
is obvious that people are concerned about rising gas prices, a falling dollar,
income and employment, etc., more so that foreign policy. Hence, it's the
economy uppermost on the minds of voters this election.
Disgruntled
wants to know: Wrongfully convicted in 1981 of raping a white woman,
Charles Chatman was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Recently, Chatman was
finally exonerated after spending nearly twenty-seven (27) years in prison,
thanks to DNA testing and the efforts of the Innocence Project of Texas to free
those wrongfully imprisoned. The great state of Texas leads the nation in the
number of cases of DNA exonerations, because the biological crime scene
evidence is retained and the state's "past culture of overly aggressive
prosecutors seeking convictions at any cost," according to District
Attorney Craig Watkins. Just as DNA testing has been a useful scientific tool
in determining guilt and innocence, can testing for lead poison in childhood
violence cases prove as important in helping to explain such violence and
provide a societal guidepost in limiting these acts in the future?
Disgruntled feels: Provocative! The Strait of Hormuz is a strategically important waterway through which most tanker-borne Middle East oil pass. This narrow waterway is off the cost of Iran and is thousands of miles away from the continental USA. The US has a carrier group stationed in the Persian Gulf, and it has been quite active in and around the Strait of Hormuz for more than a year, while it rattled its sabers and pressed for sanctions against Iran for its supposed nuclear ambitions. Some impartial observers of international relations see this situation as provocative. Imagine, if you will, the response of the US if Iran had deployed such a group of ships in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Atlanta or Pacific Oceans as close to the US as possible while remaining in international waters. There would be a tremendous hew and cry from Americans against such a provocative action. The US calling anything Iran does in the Strait, short of opening fire on a US vessel, as provocative at this juncture is akin to the pot calling the kettle black.
Mailbox: E-mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email playazhated@yahoo.com...Is Obama Presidency, Dr. King's Dream realized....By Keith Johnson...I've heard this talk all weekend: that Obama's win (if it happens) means racism in America is dead. I've even heard Black people say "what will you whiners complain about, who will you blame, once Obama's in the White House?" As big a step as it'd be-and it'd be huge-it doesn't wipe out the thousands of little and great things that happen every day due to racism. I mean heck: did sexism in England end when Thatcher became prime minister? Is Massachusetts-Boston in particular-now devoid of bigots because Duval Patrick is governor? I assume there have been no acts of race-based firings or harassment in the streets after Dinkins was mayor of NYC?
Email sunrisera@yahoo.com Get ready to have Ole Bamma rubbed in your face by white folks..they gonna tell you that Ole Bamma can teach you historical darkies something. See, he never mentions race, in fact, he has no historical connection to the Black experience in America. His father is African African and his mother is European.. I believe the negros finally got dem a can-na-date...U go Oprah and the white folks can finally do something for blacks without racial reprecussions and if there are they are Blacks folks fault.. Easy...The greatest danger to Afrocentrism is that negroes would rather think like the European than the way of their African ancestors.
Email www.usatoday.com/...Legal voters thrown off rolls...Database woes could be 'sleeper issue of 2008'...By Richard Wolf...Five years after passage of a federal law to create electronic registration databases to deter voter fraud, the new technology is posing hurdles that could disenfranchise thousands of legal voters, a USA TODAY examination finds. From Florida to Washington, voters have been challenged because names or numbers on their registration forms did not exactly match other government databases, such as Social Security and motor vehicle agencies. The databases are only as good as the information fed into them by applicants and election officials. That can lead to human errors as well as variations from state to state. Voters who have problems at the polls can cast "provisional" ballots. Election officials rule later whether those votes were properly cast and should be counted. But even that backup system varies greatly from state to state.
Email www.telegraph.co.uk...U.S. Recession Is Already Here, Warns Merrill...By James Quinn...The U.S. has entered its first full-blown economic recession in 16 years, according to investment bank Merrill Lynch. Merrill, itself one of Wall Street's biggest casualties of the sub-prime crisis, is the first major bank to declare that a recession in the world's biggest economy is now underway. U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has admitted that the U.S. economy faces severe challenges. David Rosenberg, the bank's chief North American economist, argues that a weakening employment picture and declining retail sales signal the economy has tipped into its first month of recession.
Email www.newstarget.com ...Thinking For Yourself Is Now A Crime...By Paul Craig Roberts...What was the greatest failure of 2007? President Bush's "surge" in Iraq? The decline in the value of the U.S. dollar? Subprime mortgages? No. The greatest failure of 2007 was the newly sworn in Democratic Congress. The American people's attempt in November 2006 to rein in a rogue government, which has committed the U.S. to costly military adventures while running roughshod over the U.S. Constitution, failed. Replacing Republicans with Democrats in the House and Senate has made no difference.
Email casepoint@ga.net Anchor suspended 2 weeks
for "lynch comments...By Doug Ferguson...Golf Channel suspended anchor
Kelly Tilghman for two weeks on Wednesday for saying last week that young
players who wanted to challenge Tiger Woods should "lynch him in a back
alley." Tilghman was laughing during the exchange Friday with analyst Nick
Faldo at the Mercedes-Benz Championship, and Woods' agent at IMG said he didn't
think there was any ill intent. Faldo and Tilghman were discussing young
players who could challenge the world's number one player toward the end of
Friday's broadcast at Kapalua when Faldo suggested that "to take Tiger on,
maybe they should just gang up for a while." "Lynch him in a back
alley," Tilghman replied.