The following is a recent speech given by Angaza Sabubu Laughinghouse a BWFJ leader.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is more remembered by most for his “I have a Dream Speech” and not his radical political actions or radical views about the failures of U.S. capitalism and its systematic racism or embedded white supremacy! Why are so many of us fuzzy, forgetful or just content with the political and media myth makers or just plain intentional lies about King?
Along with many others, I am a product of the 1960’s-70’s activism and movements. As an inquiring Black working class youth, born to Gloria and Charlie Jr. of Jim Crow segregated Greenville, NC, I was deeply impacted and shaped by this historic period and his April 4th,1968 assassination which occurred nearly 53 years ago.
My family, by then, had long migrated, like many African –Americans, to New York City and the North. They escaped the intensity of southern brand of repression just to endure a more sophisticated systematic racism up North. As we know, King was also influenced by the northern & large urban Black leaders and movements ( ie. militant self-defense/anti-police brutality, youth organizations, Malcolm X ( Ballot or Bullet speech), Black workers unionizing/ tenant organizing/fighting for affirmative action, anti-Viet Nam War, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, etc.). So in the late 1960’s, King attempted to bring his southern civil rights tactics to Chicago and the North, with not only violent racist resistance from whites, but the more militant urban Blacks who wanted to challenge the entire systematic racism and economic oppression of this capitalist society!
As we get further and further from that time of 1960’s, memories do fade, getfuzzy and a kind of collective amnesia sets in, as the belated African-American historian Vincent Harding has once observed. There are some liberals (Black & white) who deliberately do so, and there are others, like our political enemies and big corporate rulers / media, who purposefully promote this amnesia to serve their own class interests.
So, the question is how to remember King clearly? And how to see that amazing 1960s historic period and movement in history that he (as only one of our significant leaders) participated in through a sharp and focused lens? Three things come to mind.
First of all, King was a relatively ” radical” activist leader ! Not the kind that promoted anarchy, “righteous” self-defense against our enemies or irresponsible reckless violence against innocent people.King was a radical in his criticism of the root causes of injustice in this white supremacist and capitalist economic/social system, as well as a radical who encouraged all to engage in many forms of “direct political action and tactics” beyond just voting during the election seasons.
First of all, King was a relatively ” radical” activist leader ! Not the kind that promoted anarchy, “righteous” self-defense against our enemies or irresponsible reckless violence against innocent people.King was a radical in his criticism of the root causes of injustice in this white supremacist and capitalist economic/social system, as well as a radical who encouraged all to engage in many forms of “direct political action and tactics” beyond just voting during the election seasons.
In his growing understanding of the U.S. racist, exploitative system of capitalism that oppresses Black, Brown, indigenous, immigrant people, he was influenced by other sharper seasoned leaders , their organizations and political -strategic assessments & analysis. King joined this radical tradition of Blacks, working poor and the oppressed peoples with continued resistance and revolt with an imaginative tactic & vision of a different, more just and humane economic and social system and better world. For example, King did not just urge protesters tobe non-violent, he urged politicians and governments to be non-violent and end capitalism’s imperialist exploitation, greed and wars.
He stated that in 1967-68 , we were in a “STATE OF EMERGENCY” …midst of enormous crisis…..”a raging fire”…”we need brigades of ambulance drivers ( our people engaged in political action) that would ignore the red lights of the present system ( civil disobedience breaking unjust law )…by now it is obvious that their new laws are not enough. The emergency we face now is economic , desperate and a worsening situation” ( page 53 TOC). Please take the time this January 2021 KING DAY to read his “last book and final testament” THE TRUMPETS OF CONSCIENCE” {TOC} (1968 Harper and Row). It’s a quick read…only 78 pages.
In 1968 he took a brave stance against this U.S. imperialist war in Vietnam, in a speech in New York City’s Riverside Church, that cost him most of his liberal white and Black supporters and support of elected officials. He criticized the “injustices of capitalism: imperialist exploitation /control and greed in the U.S. Asia, Africa/ around the world” (TOC pages32-33), persistent poverty and the U.S. stolen wealth from abroad, wealth gap between the ruling elite vs. Blacks, workers and poor as well as inadequate union & workplace human rights for workers and the poor, and growing wealth disparity. Let us remember he died demanding not simply integration and an end to U.S. systematic “Jim Crow” racism, but labor rights for striking sanitation workers in Memphis.
Secondly, King was ” not a king”. He was “not a superhero” who rushed in to singularly rescue black people from the evils of American racism. He acted in concert along with the masses of many of our people and allies who wanted “another and better society and world”! He was the product of a social movement with many others – MANY many others. Some of them with longer contributions and careers in social justice struggles than himself. They were his mentors and teachers!
Secondly, King was ” not a king”. He was “not a superhero” who rushed in to singularly rescue black people from the evils of American racism. He acted in concert along with the masses of many of our people and allies who wanted “another and better society and world”! He was the product of a social movement with many others – MANY many others. Some of them with longer contributions and careers in social justice struggles than himself. They were his mentors and teachers!
There is a famous analogy in King’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, one heused many times, in which he compares his contributions and work to thatof only one pilot guiding a plane. The pilots are only one important part of a huge crew, King concedes. However, that safe journey could not be achieved without the critical and sometimes invisible work of a very skilled and committed plane and ground crew. I might choose a slightly different analogy, but the point is an important one. As Ella Baker was fond of saying, “King didn’t make or organize the movement or lead it by himself, the movement made King.”
King understood this. We cannot build a movement for social justice by hanging our hopes on a single or a few charismatic leaders, no matter how articulate, committed,and brilliant he or she may be (not King, not Obama type leaders or elected officials). YOU ….ME...everyday working people …the MASSES MUST BE THE MAKERS OF OUR VISION and HISTORY!
Most individuals change their minds, and their loyalties. Some have only self interestor the U.S. government’s FBI Counter Intelligence Programs/COINTELPRO and our peoples’ enemies get them bribed or assassinated. Most fundamentally, individuals are only as strong as the collectives, coalition organizations and communities we build for our own advancement, liberation, protection that we must surround ourselves with. We collectively must draw upon this and our own historic past and present lessons, victories and mistakes. This will keep our peoples’ ”real leaders and organizations” safe and honest, as well as grounded and accountable, to us and the true interest of our peoples and workers’ demands and agenda. It will keep us on track towards our own strategic goals, and tactics that will nurture the leadership capacity and power of the Black working class, oppressed, exploited and victimized.
Most individuals change their minds, and their loyalties. Some have only self interestor the U.S. government’s FBI Counter Intelligence Programs/COINTELPRO and our peoples’ enemies get them bribed or assassinated. Most fundamentally, individuals are only as strong as the collectives, coalition organizations and communities we build for our own advancement, liberation, protection that we must surround ourselves with. We collectively must draw upon this and our own historic past and present lessons, victories and mistakes. This will keep our peoples’ ”real leaders and organizations” safe and honest, as well as grounded and accountable, to us and the true interest of our peoples and workers’ demands and agenda. It will keep us on track towards our own strategic goals, and tactics that will nurture the leadership capacity and power of the Black working class, oppressed, exploited and victimized.
So, our commemorations and celebrations of King have to go hand in hand with strategic events, actions and celebrations of our community’s blue-collar workers, maids and porters, students and teachers, youth and seasoned activists who struggle tirelessly in what we now term as the racial/social justice or Workers/ Human/ Civil Rights movement.
When we celebrate Dr. King in context we have to also remember the freedom fighters or Black Liberation Movement fighters like the great Ella Baker (NAACP/SCLC/SNCC) who was an activist organizer and strategist for over 50 years in groups fighting racism, poverty, and U.S. repression. And Fannie Lou Hamer, who had no formal education and lacked the credentials that King enjoyed, but who was one of the most courageo
us and revered leaders in the civil rights movement of the South. And, of course, there were white activists like lawyer Arthur Kinnoy, as well as Anne Braden, who dared to stand up for justice and freedom at the risk of being attacked and ostracized in her own southern community.
We must never forget Robert Williams (Deacons For Self Defense), Angela Davis, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Black Panthers for Self Defense, A. Phillip Randolph (one of many unsung Black labor leaders), youth leaders like Bob Moses, John Lewis, Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) – seasoned national leaders who blossomed then. Certainly, the other pillar of this period was the Black Liberation Movement’s internationally renown Malcolm X’s critical contributions, lessons and active engagement on the questions of U.S. and global racism , classism, capitalism, imperialism.
Finally, part of remembering King’s legacy is remembering the dangers of political repression and vitriolic persecution. Recent events in over the recent past come tomind. King lived under a constant threat of physical attacks and assassinationbecause his visibility and outspokenness made him a target by the U.S. government and our other enemies. But something else made him a target, too: Theway in which this government, media and his critics vilified him as well as our movement. The fundamental transformative change for a better society and world, we and King demanded, was attributed by our enemies to sinister motives of our movement and his actions which called him and all of us Un-American, communists, socialists and radicals and a danger to the traditional values of this U.S. capitalist nation. King and our social movement did not back down THEN in the 1960’s (or 1970’s) or even now in 2020-2021 from this branding as “radical ” like many of today’s liberals and Democrats.
Overwhelmingly, Black & Brown working class people, the most oppressed, youth and all other progressive workers have always resisted, rebelled and fought for” radical transformative change and reform”. From abolishing slavery, 40 acres and a mule/ Reparations, mob lynching, ” Jim Crow racist denial of Human rights, systemic racism in the work place, our Black/Brown communities, by police murders, by banks, the “criminal injustice system”,etc. Today, in 2020-2021, we stood up and continue fighting for Medicare For All, Affordable Quality Housing, a Federal $15 /hour minimum wage NOW, Workers and Union rights, Tuition Free Public College Education, removal of confederate flags, statues, names from public property and spaces, etc.
King and our movement in fact then and now has been and will continue to be radical since the growing multi-faceted U.S and world Crisis has placed us as Blacks, working class people in a radically dangerous position of oppression.
Today, Trump supporters and his base – these racist and anti-worker critics and reactionary folks are today’s myth makers, but back then these were the haters in King’s time. They were politicians and editors, civic leaders and sheriffs. Today, they have organized and mobilized a powerful U.S. violent white nationalist /supremacist movement’s rampage that they left since Obama’s and Trump’s Administration.
Don’t be fooled they will continue this neo-fascist racist trend under Biden-Harris’s administration ….. THE STATE OF EMERGENCY, we are in will not just disappear with this recent 2020 election!We have work to do together! However, we must continue to build stronger people’s organizations and coalitions of organizations with a vision of building a better society and world. 
But here is a sad and troubling irony: Tea party and Trump supporters and organizers can bring guns to rallies and put their political rivals under bulls-eyes on web sites and have that accepted as legitimate political activity, while non-violent activists like us who criticize, push for just reforms and government policy are under attack by the FBI and recent court’s rulings ( ie. Check out the basis of FBI raidson the homes of Black/worker/ social justice activists as well as those who support Palestinian rights and oppose the U.S. wars, The people the FBI is targeting do not advocate the use of guns to move our agenda forward (or most don’t even own them)
We all advocate for human rights, peace and justice …But, be prepared to defend them!
We need to learn more about how this government destroyed the movement and King, too. He was a peace activist who supported anti-colonial struggles and liberation movements around the world in his last years (King was growing as a leader……and was under constant FBI surveillance. His phone was tapped, his mail was opened,
he was followed and watched. People he trusted were enlisted to spy on him. Government agents plotted how to undermine his leadership, especially as he moved more towards the left.
So, let’s remember three things this ML King Day:
he was followed and watched. People he trusted were enlisted to spy on him. Government agents plotted how to undermine his leadership, especially as he moved more towards the left.
So, let’s remember three things this ML King Day:
1)the honorable BLACK RADICAL TRADITION of progressive democratic radicalism that looks deeply and widely at the causes of injustice and tries to root them out
2)the danger of investing all our hopes and dreams in a savior-type leader and
3)the persistent “danger of socialist/ communist / radical witch hunts ” that seek to silence and intimidate us and what we are fighting for! Don’t let them make everyone else afraid to stand up, take a position that serves our best interest or
to come to each other’s support and aid.
In King’s words, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so, we must straighten our backs and work for ourfreedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” Instead of praising King for battles already fought, let’s look around at the pervasive injustices that stillexist right here in our community , in NC, in the South, in this US country and even the world.
to come to each other’s support and aid.
In King’s words, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so, we must straighten our backs and work for ourfreedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” Instead of praising King for battles already fought, let’s look around at the pervasive injustices that stillexist right here in our community , in NC, in the South, in this US country and even the world.
From the obscene disparity in wealth, lack of housing and living wage jobs, flood mitigation after Hurricane Florence, and racist discrimination in City Jobs or municipal services to the abandonment of our educational institutions. From theunchecked growth of prisons for the poor to the escalating oppression of the Palestinian people in Israel and Palestine.
Let’s pay tribute to King, and sisters Baker and Hamer, our beloved Malcolm X and all the others who fought the good fight by building ORGANIZATIONS, such as the People’s Assembly and Workers’ Assembly, into a sustainable movement for a more just better community, a just and better society and humane world.
THANK YOU
TOGETHER WE WILL WIN !
angaza sababu laughinghouse
(Angaza, in addition to his role as a leader in the BWFJ is a trade union activist and leader of UE 150-North Carolina Public Services Workers Union and the Southern Workers Assembly. He is also a member and founder of the Fruit of Labor Singing Assemble)
