"'The Most Dangerous Negro'

"The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a Dream' so disturbed the American power structure that the F.B.I. started spying on him in what The Washington Post called 'one of its biggest surveillance operations in history.' The speech even moved the head of the agency’s domestic intelligence division to label King 'the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of Communism, the Negro and national security.'

"Of course, King wasn’t dangerous to the country but to the status quo. King demanded that America answer for her sins, that she be rustled from her waywardness, that she be true to herself and to the promise of her founding.

"King was dangerous because he wouldn’t quietly accept--or allow a weary people to any longer quietly accept--what had been. He insisted that we all imagine--dream of--what could and must be.

" . . . That is the mission of a movement’s Moses.

"And those Moses figures are often born among the young who refuse to accept the conditions of their elders, who see injustice through innocent eyes. King was just 34 years old in 1963. . . .

"So now, America yearns for more of these young leaders, and in some ways it has found some, not just in the traditional civil rights struggle . . . .

"Yet there remains a sort of cultural complacency in America. . . .

"So as we rightfully commemorate . . . King’s speech, let us also pay particular attention to the content of that speech. King spoke of the 'fierce urgency of now,” not the fierce urgency of nostalgia. . . .

"What is our fierce urgency? What is the present pressure? Who will be our King? What will be our cause? . . .

"King’s staggering achievement is testament to what can be achieved by a man--or woman--possessed of clear conviction and rightly positioned on the side of justice and freedom. And it is a testament to the power of people united, physically gathering together so that they must be counted and considered, where they can no longer be ignored or written off. . . .

"The only question is . . . Who will be this generation’s 'most dangerous' American? The country is waiting."

("The Most Dangerous Negro," by Charles H. Blow, "New York Times," 28 August 2013)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2014 02:06PM by steve benson.

I was thinking about Dr. King yesterday, especially in relation to how his enemies saw him.

To me, despite his personal moral failings, he seemed reasonable, rational, non-radical, and conservative (not in the political sense, but as in proceeding with caution and thinking things through carefully).

By contrast, his enemies seemed extremely radical, thoughtless, unreasonable, and just generally downright crazy.

Off course King had some moral failings,as most of us do. He wasnt perfect, but he had testicles the size of grapefruit for his peaceful pursuit of equality. Knowing me, if I had been treated as badley as black folks(separate but equal bs) I would have joined the Black Panthers. I give the man a lot of credit. Someone poured cement down his spine. He knew he was a dead man but he contiued to lean forward. Tough guy!

To me one of Dr King's bravest deeds was his early opposition to the Vietnam war. He nailed it as a rich wan's war, paid for by the poor.

Back then the F.B.I. was J. Edgar Hoover. He is the closest American thing to Lavrenti Beria or the fictional Charles Augustus Milverton. Hoover was a racist who was terrified of Dr. King.

This is the subject that has eaten my soul since I joined at 18. It would sit there inside me being forever trampled by indoctrination. Man's inhumanity to man was A-OK because Joe said so, and if I didn't believe that, I wasn't right with God.
Here we all are sitting in our cubicles, waiting for the fall. Is it enough? By lending our names to an elitist organization WE added to the suffering. There is no "they" here, it is "we". How many have been harmed by our racist, bigoted beliefs? How many? How many men, women and children were viciously duped into believing that God had cursed them because of the color of their skin, their diversity, or their love preference? How many? WE should know. We should have a count.

Martin did not stand alone. He alone did not have all the courage, all the brilliance, he had many a wing man and woman. Had he not, his weaknesses might easily have taken him down. We need to be done with prophets and singular men who lead. We are not sheep. Perhaps in each of us there is a bit of Martin that we should call upon. Bits and pieces gathered up.

For me it is not enough to just sit and watch and hope that things are taken care of. My part in this will never be recompensed until I stand up. Lincoln said in his second inaugural address when the civil war was raging (paraphrased) -

"Woe unto the world because of offenses! For it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and UNTIL EVERY DROP OF BLOOD DRAWN BY THE LASH SHALL BE PAID BY ANOTHER DRAWN BY THE SWORD...

I am the lash. WE are the lash. Could there be a greater time than now to gather and stand up for our inhumanities?! Martin began with just one single thought and then he had the courage to allow his idea, his dream to grow. We need to do our march, Our march of recompense. If there is even one soul that has been harmed by our actions, then it is our duty to do all that we can to make it right - with great abandon.

If we choose to do nothing, then we will forever belong to Joseph.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2014 01:31PM by sannhetna.