Tag: martin luther king
John Lewis

How To Remember The Real John Lewis — And His Righteous Struggle

Many Americans, when they remember the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, reflexively turn to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, quoting selective passages about content of character. But my sister Joan, who stood under a shaded tent that day, making signs with freedom slogans for out-of-towners to raise high, had a different answer when I asked for her thoughts. Not to take anything away from King, she told me, "It wasn't just that speech. It was all the speeches." And what impressed her teenage self most were the words of a man who was just 23, a few years older than she was.

On that day, John Lewis was already stirring up the "good trouble" he favored when he said: "To those who have said, 'Be patient and wait,' we have long said that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now!"

Read NowShow less
Joe Biden, smear campaign

How Right-Wing Spinmeisters Snip And Smear Joe Biden

Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters

George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police triggered global protests against racism and police brutality and a seismic shift in U.S. public opinion. Former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden discussed this phenomenon at a Thursday event, saying that because technological advances allowed millions of Americans to see Floyd's killing on their phones, his death had a greater worldwide impact than that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Over the hours that followed, Biden's comment was ripped from its context and spun with fake outrage by pro-Trump right-wing activists and trolls, leading to a Fox & Friends segment Friday in which a Fox contributor falsely claimed that Biden had said Floyd "may have been a greater civil rights leader" than King.

Read NowShow less
The Night RFK Showed America What Leadership Means

The Night RFK Showed America What Leadership Means

History can be cruel. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., who was unquestionably America's most prominent prophet and practitioner of nonviolence, was followed by riots, arson and looting in 168 American cities and towns. The numbers are staggering: 2,600 fires were set; 21,700 people were injured; 2,600 were arrested; 39 were killed. One city that was spared all that in the days following King's murder was Indianapolis.

Credit for that must be given to the citizens of Indiana's capital city and to its leaders, both black and white, and also to a remarkable American political leader, who, on that April night in 1968, delivered the news of King's death to an Indianapolis rally of mostly African Americans.

Read NowShow less
Richard Nixon, riot

Trump Can’t Win By Stoking White Fear Of Riots

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Nineteen-sixty-eight was one of the most tumultuous years in American history. Cities across the country burned after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Robert Kennedy was gunned down a few months later. There was a lot of crime, and widespread unrest in response to the seemingly endless war in Vietnam. A bloody police riot marred the Democratic National Convention.

Read NowShow less