Happy MLK Day

The iconic Martin Luther King Jr. whom we are encouraged to celebrate - who single-handedly ended Jim Crow with one epic, color-blind speech - bears little resemblance to the radical, imperfect man who was jailed dozens of time for his organizing within the Black freedom movement. His legacy has largely been isolated, sanitized, repackaged and labeled divine: a convenient status that encourages passive messiah worshipping over grassroots community organizing. This is no accident.

Increasingly, there are calls to "Reclaim King" as a radical. It is true that his assertion of Black peoples' right to life, dignity and reparations was revolutionary. He recognized the connections between racism, war and poverty, demanding an end to the Vietnam War on both moral and economic grounds (he highlighted the mass expense of war at a time of state disinvestment from Black communities). His encouragement for a "fear and distrust of the white man's justice" challenged a central pillar of US democracy. He visited the anti-colonial struggles taking place in the global South. And at the end of his life, he called for a redistribution of wealth and restructuring of our political economy through his Poor People's Campaign, saying "an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring."

You can read the rest @
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34444-reclaim-mlk-beyond-sanitized-narratives

It is my belief he was murdered to thwart the Poor People's Campaign and thereby preserve the wealth of the oligarchs who rule the US. It was far easier for them to pay for a few statues and street signs bearing his name than it would have been to correct the injustice of the US economic system.

Here is a song to help you "celebrate" the day:

Come on!
Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never edit
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it'll never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this ...
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
'Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Uggh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!

I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

'He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obedience to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence ... and embrace black nationalism'

'Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers ... And neutralize them, 
neutralize them, neutralize them'

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow

https://youtu.be/wauzrPn0cfg