“First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he wrote: King saw this tendency of White people to too quickly and with too much relief declare success and head home smiling. There’s a saying in some Black church communities about folks like this, “Everybody wanna go to heaven, but don’t nobody wanna die.”Įven Dr.

They cannot see how ineffective are their attempts at building bridges-that are still burning. It’s the discomfort of privilege and the resulting cognitive dissonance that make folks avoid the pain and anger still brewing in oppressed communities. King as the Moses who led his people to freedom. It’s a problematically romantic and often White vision of Dr. King and his message, the good of the civil rights movement, the good of today’s movements that are demanding justice for Black men, women, and children killed by police, proclaiming that Black Lives Matter justice for women in the #timesup movement, girls and women of the #metoo and #muterkelly and missing and murdered Indigenous women movement justice for immigrants justice for Indigenous peoples of this land in movements like Standing Rock justice for trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people.

There are people who cringe at the thought of this and wish we could all just focus on the progress, the good of Dr. Donald Trump is the modern version one of those White men, spitting and shoving and kicking the civil rights activists of Dr. We are a country led by a racist, misogynist, xenophobic, bigoted bully. along with the message of equality he was preaching, the uphill battle he was fighting, is doing more harm than good to today’s movement for Black Lives and other modern freedom fighters. Once we have more knowledge about each other, we will stop condemning each other and a united front will be brought about.” Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. His contemporary Malcolm X said that “ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible. The year he died, nearly 75 percent of American people disapproved of him, according to a 1968 poll. King was widely disliked for his message of liberation for oppressed people in this country-Black people, Brown people, Native people, all poor people. Others, “too radical,” for his stance against racism and oppression.ĭr. Some regarded him as “too passive” for his position on nonviolent action. We celebrate him now, even while condemning today’s activists the same way Dr. Why? Many of the conditions that he marched, boycotted, and spoke out against still exist today- racism, materialism, militarism. King and what he stood for by leaders of and in this country-Black and White-then and now. King, and many of us refer to him as such.īut as we read mainstream articles and hear reports and speeches about how far we’ve come on this federal holiday honoring him, it is important that we remember some of the most hateful things that have been said about Dr. Today, we remember him as the beloved Dr. was one of the most reviled men in the United States.

“…at least not forever.” -Zenobia Jeffries WarfieldĪt the time of his death, Dr.

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