It took 15 years of advocating before the King holiday was signed into law. The late Congressman John Conyers of Michigan first introduced a bill for a federal holiday in 1968 just 4 days after King’s assassination. Each year for 15 years, Conyers with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus continued to advocate for the holiday. Finally, in 1983, the King holiday was approved. It would take until the year 2000 for all 50 states to adopt the holiday.
In honor of the 2021 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday commemoration Black Mail will be sharing a 3 part compilation of quotes from “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos To Community”. Published in 1967, Where Do We Go from Here was King’s evaluation of the state of race relations in the U.S. following ten years of the U.S. Civil Rights movement.
King wrote the final draft of the book while vacationing in Jamaica in January and February 1967. During this time King stayed in Ocho Rios, Jamaica where he rented a home with no telephone. This marked one of only a very few times when he was completely isolated from the day to day leadership of the civil rights movement. In this environment he was able to focus on completion of the book. 50+ years later, the book still holds some powerful parallels to our current political climate.
Quote:
It is important for the liberal to see that the oppressed person who agitates for his rights is not the creator of tension….How strange it would be to condemn a physician who, through persistent work and the ingenuity of his medical skills, discovered cancer in a patient. Would anyone be so ignorant as to say he caused the cancer? Through the skills and discipline of direct action we reveal that there is a dangerous cancer of hatred and racism in our society. We did not cause the cancer; we merely exposed it. Only through this kind of exposure will the cancer be cured.”– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Pastor Eric Manning of Emmanuel AME Church embraces Rabbai Jeffrey Myers of Tree Of Life Synagogue.
These two leaders now share a tragic bond; both having lost members of their congregations to senseless hate crimes. In 2015, Dylan Roof murdered 9 members of Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC. On October 27, 2018, eleven members of Tree Of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, PA.
In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, “Now is the time to make justice a reality for all God’s children.“
Check out our 2018 Black History Quiz!! If you would like a pdf copy. Please email us. Let us know what you think about the quiz! We encourage you to first take the quiz without going on line to look up answers. We have intentionally tried to focus on lesser known black history facts to increase opportunities for learning!
Quiz has 20 questions……20 opportunities to expand your black history knowledge base! We strive for accuracy! If you have any concerns about the quiz, please let us know. Click the link below or copy and paste into your browser to take the online quiz.
In 1866, Isaac Myers (1835-1891) formed the Colored Caulkers Trade Union Society. The union was created when Myers and a group of African American ship caulkers was fired from their jobs when white workers protested their employment. Myers and other union members pooled their resources and issued stock to raise money to purchase their own shipyard and railway, the Chesapeake Marine Railway and Dry Dock Company. The company would eventually employ 300 black employees and be awarded several government contracts. It would also employ some white workers as well.
In 1869 Isaac Myers and organized the Colored National Labor Union with 214 members after their attempts to merge with a white labor union were rejected because black workers refused to change their political party affiliation. The CNLU was active in 21 states. Myers was the first president of the CNLU. The CNLU petitioned Congress to subdivide public lands and give portions of land to African Americans. Their petition was unsuccessful. Abolitionist and Civil Rights leader, Frederick Douglass was elected president of the CNLU in 1872. Though seeking better pay and working conditions for their membership, the CNLU issued a written statement against the hiring and immigration of Chinese workers feeling that Chinese laborers would threaten their employment opportunities. Anti-Chinese sentiment would continue to be codified by the U.S. government with further discriminatory legislation being enacted through the Anti-Coolie Act of 1862, and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
The use of violence as a tool to oppress and subjugate people of color is well documented. Many have seen images of African American protestors during the Civil Rights movement being viciously attacked by dogs. This was not a phenomenon only common to the American Civil Rights Movement. The use of dogs to inflict violence upon people of color is well documented both in the U.S. and abroad. Dogs were often used to inflict punishment on enslaved persons. They were also used to track enslaved persons who ran away. The use of dogs was not ask haphazard. Dogs were specially bred for this purpose.
In an article published by the African American Intellectual Society (AAHIS), Tyler Parry, associate professor at the California State University, Fullerton, candidly shares this troubling and violent history.
Some of our readers may recall the viral video of an African-American man being mauled by a police dog in Florida in July 2017. This incident is also highlighted in the article as well. Click below to view the video. Note the images in the video are disturbing:
August 28, 2017 marks the 54th anniversary of the historic “I Have A Dream Speech” given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, in Washington, DC during the March on Washington. More than 200,000 flooded the capital for the historic speech. Below are some little known facts about the March that you may not know.
The March on Washington along with the speech given by Dr. King was said to pressure President Kennedy to approve federal civil rights legislation in Congress.
Dr. King was not the “originator” of the “I have a dream” language contained in his speech. It is likely that this language was first used by then 22 year old Prathia Hall after the burning of the Mount Olive Baptist Church in 1962. King had preached at a church service following the bombing. Prathia Hall prayed during the service. During her prayer she shared the “I have a dream” language. Check out our previous Black Mail post for more information on Prathia Hall. https://wordpress.com/post/blackmail4u.com/169
Originally, the speech was entitled, “Normalcy – Never Again” and did not contain any “I have a dream” wording. Dr. King was encouraged by gospel singer Mahalia Jackson who whispered to him during the speech, “Tell ‘em about the dream Martin. Tell em’ about the dream.“
Dr. King was the last speaker of the day. Many of the march participants, had already left to return to their homes and missed the historic speech.
William Sullivan, head of the FBI’s domestic intelligence division wrote a memo after the speech labeling Dr. King “as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.”
King’s speech, initially did not get much attention in the media. The march itself received most of the media attention. By the time of King’s death in 1968, the speech, had been largely forgotten.
Dr. King first shared, “I have a dream” during a speech in Detroit two months before the March on Washington. Several of his staffers actually tried to discourage him from using the language again.
Ben Carson’s, ill-fated reference this week, of enslaved Africans as being immigrants received major shade on social media. (Click here to view our blog post on the incident)
Amid the social media black lash, a quote from @justlikecandi_1 received thousands of likes and retweets. It is the prefect combination of humor truth, and sarcasm.
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