I was watching/listening to some of the ceremony this morning at the dedication of the
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial here in Washington, DC. It was an interesting assortment of voices. Some reflected on the past, taking a stroll down memory lane. Others were grateful to see Dr. King being honored - even though the memorial may have been
built with unpaid Chinese labor, something Dr. King would absolutely demonstrate against (not the Chinese part, but the unpaid part - remember, he was very pro-labor). Some tried to keep the message alive by pointing out that MLK was not some simple "can't we all just get along" man, and that he would be outraged by the growing economic and social disparities in American today. He'd also certainly be protesting the wars. In other words, the timing couldn't have been better, considering the
massive October 15th protests the day before associated with the
Occupy movement across the globe. MLK was not a docile spiritual leader who made this one famous speech on the National Mall in 1963, highlighted by four special words. He was a tireless social justice fighter. We get our MLK watered down in America, so I wanted to repost something I wrote a while back about the good Doctor, with the hope that people realize, with the attention on MLK and his memorial, that he would have been out there marching the previous day. The Occupy movements are very much in line with the ideal Dr. King fought for, and ultimately died for. Let us not forget the real MLK in these hard times.
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