March TodayToday I attended a local rally and march to honor the memory Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. From the words of Dr. King that were read, to the words of the many speakers, I learned little, if any, new information. But I was inspired by the words as by the music. Words of inspiration, not information, are what we need these days — words of inspiration that lead to action, not more words.
From what I heard today I was inspired to write this imaginary talk of Martin Luther King Jr. addressing the people at the rally in Church today.
I am in this Church preaching to the choir — you people who have been active in civil rights, justice and peace movements. I was blessed to know of a few of you personally. To you, blessed ones, in Milwaukee today I say:
Do not honor me but honor what I stood for and gave my life for. Here is where I believe I would be if I were in Milwaukee in these days, struggling for truth and justice. I would be speaking out in word and nonviolent action against Milwaukee’s participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In particular, just as I did with LBJ, who I strongly supported for President, I would be challenging the local US Congressional Representatives in Milwaukee. I would hold Rep. Gwen Moore accountable for her vote for additional military spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and demand that she reverse her position and take a stand with congresspersons trying to end both wars and curb military spending.
I believe I would confront Rep. Gwen Moore and Senator Feingold for their support of the destruction of Palestine and of the siege of Gaza that is ongoing. I care not what they have said and done in the past. In the present they are supporting hatred and violence against persons in the Middle East, one of the major causes of terrorism.
I would take on the militarization of our schools as represented by Marquette University teaching military values over religious values, and teaching ‘reflexive killing’, killing without conscience, to students from all over the region. I would oppose the Mayoral takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools that can lead, as in Chicago, to further militarization of middle and high schools.
I would support in every way possible the people of Haiti who have been kept in poverty and without the right to freely elect their own leadership, despite all the thousands of agencies “doing good” for the people. Allow their freely elected president, whom the American military under President Bush kidnapped and removed, back into the country as a sign that there will be a real change after this devastation of the earthquake has passed. I would speak out to end the exploitation of labor supported by President Clinton’s economy policies toward Haiti.
There are many other issues, like the rights of immigrants, normalcy of relations with Cuba, Justice for Jody Jenkins, building an effective transportation system, and preferential option of meeting the needs of the poor with respect and justice that I would speak to.
You all are doing so much good, fighting injustice and violence in all these areas. But as with the many foreign agencies in Haiti, unless you work together with the people and for the people, all your “doing good” will be for naught in a crisis. When the next war arrives, or at the next act of violence in the city, or when the greed of rich further destroys the economy, you will be lost and wandering like the people of Haiti.
To defeat the “powers that be”, be they white, African American or Hispanic, we must unite on the common ground of our values and take up arms, nonviolently. Work together, members of the choir, and sing the same song even though it might not be your favorite song. We will get to your song. For no justice or peace will be built if we stay divided in action and come together only in words. Discrimination on the buses in Montgomery was only one issue in the civil rights movement. But we came together to defeat it. By nonviolent action, by action on specific issues, working together, we built the civil rights movement. Some of us were jailed, discredited or marginalized, but we stayed the course and made, by our actions, not our words or information, real change.
Before I died I call for a “Poor people’s March” on Washington D.C. I dreamt of a tent city on the National Mall where all kinds of persons of different creeds, races and beliefs came together to work for human rights, united as one. I was killed before it could happen, but it did happen. It was wonderful to behold, people of poverty and wealth, black, white and brown united and speaking with one voice. I thought this would be the beginning of something greater than the civil rights movement, that this would become a movement that would speak, with a united voice, to all issues of race, justice and peace. But that moment was the beginning of the end of this movement to unite all as one, not the beginning I had prayed for.
Much of my inspiration for nonviolent action came from Mahatma Gandhi who spoke his message with action more than words. Gandhi said when writing about his experiments with the truth, that before we can go out and be of help to other people we must start at home to live the message and be the change we want to see. There have been many marches on Washington D.C., on many issues, but we are no longer singing the same song.
Choir of Milwaukee, sing the same song over and over again until your message is heard in action, loud and clear. Then start a new song and keep on singing until our dream is achieved.
The spirit of nonviolence that drove me is in you. Honor not me but this spirit, and hear the call to arms. We will overcome!
Comments
Bill Sell — 19 January 2010, 19:59
The rally. Relevant to us now were the words of the last speakers. Homeless voices appeared twice: vets, families. Carpenter’s searing indictment of our policy in Haiti (not sure if he has facts on his side, but he does grab my suspicions).
You are suggesting ONE issue. And I believe that might be a good plan.
I mean we all need to continue our work, but what drove the Montgomery bus boycott was years of sitting in the back of the bus, and all the indignities fostered by Jim Crow. But ONE goal - to ride the bus as free persons. What fed our open housing marches was the inability to live where one chooses, ONE goal, an open housing ordinance.
Bob, you’re on to something, I believe, if we were to choose ONE as a priority for all of us (we must keep working on the MANY issues that pull on us) but can we pull together for ONE goal til it’s won? We need a voice that can stitch the MANY together into energy for the ONE choice goal. What is at hand and winnable?
I am happy for the survivors among the elderly and their stories of their contribution to our civil rights legacy. I love their stories as they come to us (I am one of the elderly after all) - for all they did for us over the last century. But the rally was an hour of being indulgent of old memories and forgive me for sounding ungrateful, I don’t mean to be. (I admire and applauded all of the speakers, including Ruth, Vel, Leon) But a rally should not spend too much time looking into a rearview mirror.
JoeRad — 20 January 2010, 11:10
As we talked about Bob, tackle one issue at a time as a united front. If we can get leaders of 20 or 30 groups together who are all fighting for their own social justice issues, have a small discussion on each of the issues perhaps a minute or 2 presented by a spokesperson from each of the groups who wish to cooperate and then all present vote on our three favorite issues as 1st thru 3rd priority and see how that tallies up. Then, continue working on our main issues but always be there for the issue voted upon as most important/easily winnable until we achieve some success on that issue and move on to the next. No central leader need be chosen, for that only provides a target; but instead a true spirit of social democratic participation from all involved. Would enuf people be willing to put aside their pet issues as well as their egos? Can we get 20–30 groups who have enuf people who would be committed to an action of this sort and magnitude? We must call on civic groups, labor, peace, environmental and perhaps some religious … perhaps.
I recall John Nichols response on 2 occasions when, upon each occasion, I mentioned that I felt that media reform was the most important issue because if the people were not able to hear the truth from accurate and complete facts, they could not come to a sound opinion based on reality but instead on the imperfect facts they had from which to form an opinion. He said roughly, ‘I don’t want you to necessarily make media reform your main issue because we all have an issue that is most important to each of us, but make it your second most important issue and that way there will be people working on all the important issues of the day but a huge and magnified amount of people keeping their eye on media reform’. I would take that a slight step further and say, “let’s all continue working on our social/justice issues most important to us personally, but let’s agree to make the issue we vote upon as most important, our temporary ‘most important issue until we achieve success … and then move onto the next most important issue we vote on”. As a corollary to this I might add, “let’s be sure that our first most important issues be ones which are the most easily winable so that a measure of success can become our guiding light”.
What say you all? Wouldn’t it be a different world if instead of a group of 300, listening to the same blah, blah and blah on our opposition to the wars in front of some downtown location where no one but ourselves is listening, we had a group of 5 −10,000 outraged citizens marching thru the city demanding an end to the on-going wars? What if, instead of 30,000 −50,000 people supporting Voces de la Frontera,s annual march on immigration reform and human rights, there were 120,000 or more people with a much larger % being non-latino. What if, when going to Herb Kohl’s or Gwen Moore’s office with a handful of people, instead had 300–400 angry citizens demanding an end to the war funding, truth regarding Gaza and Judge Goldstone’s report, a strong push to keep the internet free, condemnation of specific corporate abuses and on … demanding that they respond to the voice of the people.
I believe that the window of opportunity is shrinking for all of us to connect in this way. Monthly there are more and more restrictions being placed on our freedoms out of sight’s purview. The last such event took place last week and if you missed it in one of the reports I sent out recently here it is again:
[Safety & Security for the people? or more state’s rights repression to control masses once they discover there is no economic recovery, no plan to reverse global warming, no way out of Iraq, Afghanistan, et al. The Ministry of Love quietly signed Exec Order 13528.
— Big Brother: Obama Calls for the Integration of State and Federal Military Forces or
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17006 ]
Remember the words of Justice William O. Douglas:
“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
Now, no more talk … how to implement this?
Debbie Metke — 21 January 2010, 13:51
All three of you have made terrific points. As a new member to the Peace Action Steering Committee, I will certainly fight to implement getting the mass of Milwaukee’s peace and justice organizations working in concert on a few issues. I know Bob (also on the Committee) will help too.
I’m thinking of starting by contacting the various organizations and telling them we’re making a booklet of activist organizations and we’d like to list them. (We’ll need the info anyway). We’ll also let them know that we want to work with them on their issues and our issues. Whatchyathink?
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