Tag Archives: Martin Luther King

America's Future, Politics

MLK National Day of Service

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silhouette of Martin Luther King and day of service textIt’s the commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday tomorrow. A day for voluntarily providing some kind of service in King’s memory. Here’s a link to the national site where you can find a place to volunteer or record what your group did.

In my small locale, there’s not many opportunities for such service. So next year, I’ll have to try harder and sooner to not let the day go by. I hope you will find something you can do.

While I should stop there I can’t. With the inauguration of someone who shares none of the values nor the accomplishments of King coming next Friday, I must continue. To be fair, Donald Trump did PLAN on visiting the Smithsonian African-American History Museum tomorrow. But he had to cancel due to “scheduling conflicts.”

So herewith, MORE FAKE NEWS! Ending with what he will be doing instead of visiting the Smithsonian.

Trump considered Attorney General nominee Jefferson Beauregard Session’s suggestion to volunteer at the Museum of the War of Northern Aggression in Alabama. He ultimately declined due to travel time issues.

Trump SERIOUSLY considered serving food in Little Odessa—Brighton Beach. Apparently he misunderstood the relationship of the Russian emigres there with Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs back home.  Vlad nixed that idea after Donald mentioned it to him.

Finally, the right place dawned on him, a cat rescue shelter in Tribeca. Trump tweeted this about his choice:

I just love pussies, especially grabbing and holding them. Oh WHAT A FEELING!

America's Future, Politics

“I Can’t Breathe”–Protests Are an American Tradition

Did the anti-war protests of the sixties and seventies hasten the end of the Vietnam War? In retrospect, probably not. They most certainly helped bring an end to the political career of Lyndon Johnson and bring on Richard Nixon as the next president in 1968. But I could hardly fail to participate in those protests, knowing what I did from spending the year between October 1967 and October 1968 in Vietnam . Did Rosa Parks bring Lyndon Johnson to confront the American South and shepherd the passage through Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Not directly or by herself, but she started a parade of protests by countless others when she refused to move to the back of the bus in 1955. In the end, all of the protests did make a difference. Will the “I Can’t Breathe” protests have similar result—eliminating the impunity with which police officers can kill unarmed suspects? Who can say for sure, but the protests must continue. In 1849, Henry David Thoreau was imprisoned for refusing to pay a poll tax. While jailed, his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson visited him. He asked Thoreau, “Henry, what are you doing in there?” To which Thoreau replied, “Waldo, the question is what are you doing out there?” Thoreau in his civil disobedience (a published treatise) inspired Gandhi, who in turn inspired Martin Luther King. Nonviolent protest has a rich tradition in America. When an injustice occurs repeatedly, protests may be the one of the most effective tools at the citizen’s disposal, along with the ballot box, in generating a change.