Maravi

King's roadmap

King's roadmap
By Editorial
Sunday April 06, 2008 [04:00]

History is indeed made up of significant events which shape our future and outstanding leaders who influence our destiny. Black Americans - African Americans – needed a Martin Luther King, but above all the United States needed him. The significant qualities of this special man cannot be underestimated nor taken for granted. Within a span of 13 years from 1955 to his death in 1968, he was able to expound, expose and extricate the United States from many wrongs.

His tactics of protest involved non-violent passive resistance to racial injustice. It was the right prescription for that country, and it was right on time. Hope in the United States was waning on the part of many black Americans, but Martin Luther King Jr provided a candle along with a light. He provided the United States with a roadmap so that all Americans could locate and share in a common destiny.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr showed the American people the way to mend those broken fences and to move on in building that land rather than destroying it. He led campaign after campaign on the streets of America in an effort to secure change. Today, black Americans have federal registration which provides access and legal protection in the areas of public accommodations, housing, voting rights, schools and transportation. These rights were not easily won in the land which claimed and claims to be the land of freedom, liberty, democracy and so on and so forth. These rights were not readily accepted, but the good will and conscious of an enormous spectrum of the American people – both black and white – said “move on”.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr was really a drum major who was able and ready to lead that nation to greater heights through love and peace. His background as a Baptist preacher instilled in him a keen awareness of the urgency of the moment and the ability to make alterations to his plans. This skill helped him establish rapport with his ever-changing audience so that he could consistently communicate at a meaningful level.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s most memorable speech from his life as an activist, “I Have a Dream,” not only helped to galvanise the already growing civil rights movement across the United States at a time, it also became one of the most influential and inspirational pieces of rhetoric in American history.

What is also apparent in “I Have a Dream” is Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s deep commitment to scholarship – he earned a PhD from Boston University. He was clearly well vest in both American history and religious scripture, and he seamlessly weaves references to both into the fabric of his oration. Overall, “I Have a Dream” can be held up as a masterful creative work in itself; its dramatic structure coupled with its image-laden content render a remarkably moving piece of American literature that when read even outside of its original context, still strongly resonates today.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s contributions to American history place him in this inimitable position. In his short life, Dr Martin Luther King Jr was instrumental in helping the American people realise and rectify those unspeakable flaws which were tarnishing the name of their country. The events which took place in and around his life were earth shattering, for they represented an America that was hostile.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr catapulted to fame when he came to the assistance of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery, Alabama black seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus to a white passenger. In those days American blacks were confined to positions of second class citizenship by restrictive laws and customs. To break these laws would mean subjugation and humiliation by the police and the legal system. Beatings, imprisonment and sometimes death were waiting for those who defied the system.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr grappled with and died in the effort to make a contribution to the just solution of the same great issues which we faced in this region, especially in apartheid South Africa.

There is still racism in America and in many other parts of the world. It will be a lie to claim that there is no racism today. There may be indeed no racist laws, but there are very rigid racial customs that are no less serious for being hidden. The marginalisation of black populations, and the contempt in which they are held, are situations we cannot accept as human beings. And these people are becoming increasingly aware of their situation and are beginning to claim their most basic rights; this new attitude carries the promise of fruitful results.

Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination should be the occasion for an examination of conscious regarding the immense human cost historically connected with this phenomena. Such an examination will help us define a commitment to races that have for centuries been mistreated. The bold efforts of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others past and present are there to point a way we must follow in accordance with our own historical situation.

We feel deeply on this subject; we cannot help it. Let us take a little glance at the history of the black American, the African American. It seems to us that the story will melt hearts of stone. Many people went voluntarily to America. Black Americans are there because they could not help it. Their ancestors were captured in the jungles and on the plains of Africa, captured as one captures wild beasts, torn from their homes and kindred; loaded into slave ships, packed like sardines in a box, half of them dying on the ocean passage; some jumping into the sea in their frenzy, when they had a chance to choose death in place of slavery. They were captured and brought there.

They could not help it. They were bought and sold as slaves, to work without pay, because they were black. They were subject to all of this for generations, until finally they were given their liberty, so far as the law goes – and that is only a little way, because, after all, every human being’s life in this world is inevitably mixed with every other life and, no mater what the laws we pass, no matter what the precautions we take, unless the people we meet are kindly and decent human and liberty-loving then there is no liberty.

Freedom comes from human beings, rather than from laws and institutions. Now, that is their history. These people are the children of slavery. If the American people owe anything to any human being, or to any power in the universe, they owe it to the black Americans. Above all other human beings, they owe an obligation and a duty to the black Americans that can never be repaid.

This is why Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. needs to be thanked for being the drum major who was able and ready to lead that nation to greater heights through love and peace.

Labels: MLK

posted by MrK @ 4:54 AM