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Some Lesser-Known, yet Still Powerful, MLK Quotes

Maria

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Jan 15, 2023

Some Lesser-Known, yet Still Powerful, MLK Quotes

By Aswad Walker, The Defender Network, Afro News

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a prolific speaker, meaning he has a litany of speeches given over his years in the public eye that go far beyond the many sermons he preached. Not only that, MLK wrote 10-plus books and penned countless op-eds for newspapers and magazines where he shared in detail his positions on various topics. Thus, it is a sin and a shame that all most people know about MLK are the words that he uttered in the speech he gave during the Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom—“I Have a Dream” (a speech he gave at least two times before that famous march).

Shared below are just a few lesser-known, but very powerful and telling quotes from our “Drum Major for Justice.” But please know that there is an entire world of information available to us all not only about Dr. King, but by him—his own articles, books and speeches—that can give us more than a surface-level understanding of the man and what he stood for.

“I must confess that that dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare. Now I’m not one to lose hope. I keep on hoping. I still have faith in the future. But I’ve had to analyze many things over the last few years and I would say over the last few months, I’ve gone through a lot of soul-searching and agonizing moments. And I’ve come to see that we have many more difficulties ahead and some of the old optimism was a little superficial and now it must be tempered with a solid realism. And I think the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long way to go.”

Martin Luther King Jr., in an interview with NBC, May 8, 1967

“There are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for. And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

Martin Luther King said the last line of this quote on several occasions, including on June 23, 1963 at Cobo Hall during the Detroit Walk to Freedom, a march that preceded and had more participants than the March on Washington which was held on Aug. 28. 1963.

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

King, in his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham City Jail

“We’ve been in the mountain of war. We’ve been in the mountain of violence. We’ve been in the mountain of hatred long enough. It is necessary to move on now, but only by moving out of this mountain can we move to the promised land of justice and brotherhood and the Kingdom of God. It all boils down to the fact that we must never allow ourselves to become satisfied with unattained goals. We must always maintain a kind of divine discontent.”

–Martin Luther King Jr., during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on Dec. 10, 1964

“We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.”

King, in 1963, during a eulogy for the martyred children

“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

King, in a 1958 article, “Out of the Long Night,” by Gospel Messenger periodical

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

– King, during an Apr. 4, 1967 visit to Riverside Church in New York City

“A riot is the language of the unheard.”

–King, during an interview with Mike Wallace

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhuman.”

King, in 1966, at the Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights

“Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Without persistent effort, time itself becomes an ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social destruction.”

–King, In Chapter 11 of his text, “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, Where Do We Go From Here?”

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” (Birth of a New Age, 1956)

King, during an Aug. 11, 1956 address in Buffalo, Ny. before his beloved Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity

This post was originally published on Defender Network

March on Washington Exhibit Opens at National Center for Civil & Human Rights

Maria

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Jan 15, 2023

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March on Washington Exhibit Opens at National Center for Civil & Human Rights

By Donnell Suggs, Word in Black

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights located in the heart of downtown and only blocks from Dr. Martin Luther King’s childhood home will display the special exhibition of documents, speeches, and photos from the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

The exhibition of the documents from The Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection, Now is the Time: Remembering the Legacy of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, is a collaboration between the center and Morehouse College, the owners of the documents, and the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, which is home to the documents.

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights Director of Exhibitions Lance Wheeler believes though many have heard of the legendary march and seen footage of that day, visitors will enjoy reading and seeing the authentic and original pieces of history. Photos are not allowed to be taken while inside the exhibit.

“The idea of this collection is to really give you a snapshot of the day,” said Wheeler, 31 of August 23, 1963 when more than 250,000 people convened at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. “I really wanted to focus on the people, the planning and the logistics.”

“I’m reminded every time I look at the documents. I’m reminded that Dr. King was also a man trying to navigate the American system.”

LANCE WHEELER, THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS DIRECTOR OF EXHIBITIONS

Brochures, flyers, notes and maps of the march route are on display. Most interestingly, visitors to the exhibit will see copies of speeches from civil rights icons and supporters such as former New York City NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, and Whitney M. Young.

Among the documents that will get a heavy dose of attention from visitors will be an original hand-edited copy of what is now known as the “I Have A Dream” speech. Dr. King’s scribbles and edits through the document in blue ink transport viewers back to that podium where he gave the speech that, in parts, might be the most well-known speech in American history.

The speech was originally titled, “Normalcy Never Again,” and Dr. King famously improvised the focus of the text, forever changing American history in the process. “I think the archival collection really humanizes these civil rights icons that we all know,” said Sarah Tanner, head of archives research at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library. “We see the notes, the corrections, and glimpses behind the scenes.”

“It humanizes them and makes them accessible,” added Tanner.

‘There’s magic behind this Collection,” says Wheeler. “I’m reminded every time I look at the documents. I’m reminded that Dr. King was also a man trying to navigate the American system.” Wheeler said Dr. King’s ability to adapt was one of his superpowers, but yet made him more human at the same time. “Even Superman is Clark Kent at times,”Wheeler joked.

The exhibition opens Friday at noon and will run through May.

Black Leader Public Safety Summit Leaves More Questions Than Answers

Maria

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Jan 14, 2023

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Black Leader Public Safety Summit Leaves More Questions Than Answers

ByTandy Lau, New York Amsterdam News,Word in Black

Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) gathered New York’s top Black leaders for a public safety summit behind closed doors in the organization’s Harlem offices last Thursday, Jan. 5. City politicians such as Mayor Eric Adams and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams were joined by state officials Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, Attorney General Letitia James and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to discuss concerns of gun violence and policing.

The district attorney trio of Darcel Clark, Eric Gonzalez and Alvin Bragg was also present, albeit the latter joined remotely. NAACP’s Hazel Dukes was there, although most local Harlem leaders—elected or chosen—were not. With Speaker of the New York Assembly Carl Heastie and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also attending, Sharpton joked extensively about having multiple speakers present as the House of Representatives was struggling to elect just one. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the leaders highlighted that the top brass, in the nation’s biggest city, is overwhelmingly Black.

“This is what our ancestors prayed for—is standing on this stage right now,” said Adams. “We’re going to live up to those prayers, those sacrifices, all the things they went through.”

“Never before in the history of this state have we seen so many of our top officials come from the Black community,” said Sharpton. “It was our idea that we would have those officials sit and discuss public safety and begin a series of conversations.”

The summit was also a demonstration of a united Black leadership for community public safety, an issue the attendees are often fractured over. Williams—who was not present at the press conference—has often questioned Adams’s handling of New Yorkers with serious mental illness and deployment of plainclothes anti-gun units during the mayor’s first year. Heastie and Stewart-Cousins rejected Adams’s call for a special state legislative session over bail reform last summer, reported Politico. Sharpton put it as “different hymns in the same hymn book.” He also emphasized that criminal justice reform has to be included in public safety conversations.

Little was shared beyond the optimism expressed by Sharpton, Adams and company. They opted to keep the discussions from the summit private and refused to respond to media questions. Adams vaguely described the conversations as unrestricted by “one issue” and focused on systemic poverty and racism.

“We will discuss them in private,” said James. “We will come forth with a plan. We will map out where the issues are. And we will join together as one.”

After the summit, Brooklyn D.A. Gonzalez told the Amsterdam News the summit was a big step forward for Black and brown New Yorkers.

“To have all this leadership in one place with the commitment to move this forward is going to be good for this city,” he said. “[It’s going to be] good for people who are concerned for their safety and are also worried about issues of unfairness in our criminal legal system.”

Meanwhile, the very next day, at an invitation-only City Hall late afternoon event, the mayor and Office of Ethnic and Community Media Executive Director José Bayona held an in-person media roundtable to discuss 2022 and topics related to the community.

At the packed Year End Ethnic and Community media roundtable, 30 or 40 members of the New York press were granted one question each. The session over-ran its allotted 45 minutes. Topics ranged from housing to health care, policing, education, the migrant crisis and immigration, and small business. Officials gave polite and standard responses as the assembled press asked their questions.

The Amsterdam News asked the mayor, now a year into his administration, about his message to and plan for the under-employed, unemployed youth who were no longer in school. “There’s about 250 thousand between the ages of 18 and 24 not in school, unemployed, not in any type of program,” Adams replied. “We have to go get them. The average person on the street—if we were to ask you, ‘Where do I go to get a job? Where do I go to get my son a job? Where do I go to get my daughter a job?’—there’s no central place of where to get a job. We’re changing that. My workforce development team [will] come up with one site … [to] be called New York City Jobs or whatever. It should be universal that no matter who you are, if you are someone with English as a second language…you know to say, ‘Go to New York City Jobs.’ If you’re a person who just came home from jail and you want to see some opportunities…’Go to New York City Jobs.’ We need a central depository of all the jobs that are available.

“We’re gonna do busses, we’re gonna do ads, we’re gonna do billboards,” Adams added. “There’s a disconnect between those who are looking for jobs and those who want to hire, so we’re gonna take the complexity out of it, and say, ‘If you’re looking for a job, here’s where you need to go as your starting point.’ Break it down for areas for jobs; what type of education you need. Some don’t need an education at all. It’s unbelievable when I sit down with business owners, large and small, and they tell me, ‘I’m looking for people to hire.’ It’s amazing.”

Adams offered an example: “We’re getting ready to open up the wind farm over in Central Park. We’re gonna need people to build these devices, to install them.”

It is not an official job-making strategy, but the mayor continued, “We need people to know there are jobs available in the city. We’ve got all these jobs for school safety agents. People are not aware of that. Do you know how many jobs we have in city government that people are not aware of? We need to have a central place [where] those who are not savvy can go to get a job, and right now, that doesn’t exist. We’re building that out right now—that’s my next meeting with my chief technology officer, to see some of the versions of it. We’re hoping to have that up and running by the end of February, because you’re right: We have got to get people employed.”

Additional reporting by Nayaba Arinde.

Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.

Booker Lands Job in Kentucky Governor’s Administration

Maria

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Jan 14, 2023

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Booker Lands Job in Kentucky Governor’s Administration

By BRUCE SCHREINER, Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has hired former U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker for a lead role in efforts to connect state government with community and faith-based groups in policy partnerships.

Booker, a Democrat from Louisville, will head the Governor’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and Community Involvement, the governor’s office announced Friday.

The appointment comes more than two months after Booker was trounced by Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who secured a third term in last year’s Senate election in Kentucky.

Booker, a former state lawmaker and two-time unsuccessful Senate candidate, said in a statement that he was “inspired to take on this opportunity” in Beshear’s administration.

“Kentucky, I love you,” Booker said on social media. “I am honored to continue my service to you.”

As a candidate, he previously talked about his faith and how it helped shape his policy priorities.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has hired former U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker for a lead role in efforts to connect state government with community and faith-based groups in policy partnerships.

Booker, a Democrat from Louisville, will head the Governor’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and Community Involvement, the governor’s office announced Friday.

The appointment comes more than two months after Booker was trounced by Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who secured a third term in last year’s Senate election in Kentucky.

Booker, a former state lawmaker and two-time unsuccessful Senate candidate, said in a statement that he was “inspired to take on this opportunity” in Beshear’s administration.

“Kentucky, I love you,” Booker said on social media. “I am honored to continue my service to you.”

As a candidate, he previously talked about his faith and how it helped shape his policy priorities.

Booker’s election-year appointment to run an office created by a former GOP governor drew quick criticism Friday from the state Republican Party.

“The price for Charles Booker’s loyalty to Governor Beshear is a plum job in his administration and a taxpayer-funded paycheck,” state GOP spokesman Sean Southard said in a statement.

The governor’s office didn’t immediately provide salary details for Booker’s appointment. The office Booker will lead was first established by former Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher, Beshear’s office said.

The appointment comes as the Democratic governor seeks a second term this year in GOP-trending Kentucky. A dozen Republicans are competing for their party’s nomination to challenge Beshear in November.

Polling shows Beshear has maintained high approval ratings from Kentuckians while leading the state through a series of tragedies, including the global COVID-19 pandemic, tornadoes that tore through parts of western Kentucky and floodwaters that inundated portions of eastern Kentucky.

But with the state’s increasing tilt toward the GOP, Beshear faces a tough challenge as he tries to reassemble the coalition that carried him to a narrow victory over Republican incumbent Matt Bevin in the 2019 governor’s race. Crucial to that coalition is Jefferson County — which includes Booker’s home base of Louisville — where Beshear drew nearly 100,000 more votes than Bevin.

Booker’s hiring was among several appointments to Beshear’s administration on Friday. The governor said the appointees reflect the state’s “deep well of talented people with tremendous dedication and a breadth of knowledge and experience.”

What is Racial Battle Fatigue? A School Psychologist Explains

Maria

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Jan 14, 2023

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What is Racial Battle Fatigue? A School Psychologist Explains

By Geremy Grant, The Conversation

When William A. Smith, a scholar of education and culture, introduced the term “racial battle fatigue” in 2003, he used it to describe the cumulative effects of racial hostility that Black people – specifically faculty and graduate students – experience at predominantly white colleges and universities. In short, it takes a toll on their psychological, physical and emotional well-being.

Since then, the term has been applied by scholars to Hispanic undergraduates and women of color. Scholars have also applied the term to groups beyond the college campus, such as teachers of color and students of color at the K-12 level. Most of the research on racial battle fatigue deals with the matter within the context of education.

As a concept, racial battle fatigue is rooted in critical race theory, which holds that racism is systemic and embedded in legal systems and policies, not just something that takes place on an interpersonal level.

Smith was not the first to connect race and fatigue in one phrase. For example, in his 1990 book “Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America,” author Shelby Steele wrote about “a kind of race fatigue, a deep weariness with things racial.”

And the term “battle fatigue” has long been used to describe the symptoms that result from the stress of combat, such as depression and anxiety.

The term “racial battle fatigue,” then, likens the collective experiences of people of color who are subjected to racial hostility to that of soldiers who experience combat stress. Both are believed to result from being placed in a hostile environment filled with regular threats and attacks.

What causes racial battle fatigue?

It may come about from racial macroaggressions and racial microaggressions.

Racial macroaggressions are far-reaching race-related experiences that may be publicized and traumatic. For instance, when a video surfaced of George Floyd slowly being killed as a result of a police officer who knelt on his neck, experts say it traumatized many who saw the video. This experience is an example of how hearing about or observing experiences of racial prejudice and discrimination can add to the distress of people of color.

Racial microaggressions are defined as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.” Common racial microaggressions toward Black individuals include questions like “Where are you from?” and statements such as “You are so articulate” or “I’m not racist. I have several Black friends.” They also include asking a Black person, “Why are you so loud?” and confusing a Black professional for a service worker.

Students of color may experience racial microaggressions throughout their academic careers, beginning before college and persisting into college and university settings.

What does racial battle fatigue cause?

Chronic racial stress is associated with poorer mental health. This includes depression and anxiety. It is also associated with an increased likelihood for developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Chronic racial stress also increases the probability that a person of color won’t get good sleep. It is associated with a diminished sense of well-being, a loss of appetite and elevated blood pressure.

Racial microaggressions in academic settings can hurt students’ academic achievement and leave them feeling out of place and invisible to teachers and administrators.

What can be done?

There are several strategies students of color can practice to minimize the damage caused by experiencing racial stress.

1. Build community: Social belonging has been found to mitigate racial stress for Black high school students. It has also been found to improve the academic achievement of Black college students.

To this effect, students of color can seek to form connections with other individuals of color to foster a sense of community, which may lessen feelings of isolation for people of color.

2. Engage in mindfulness: Research suggests the benefits of using mindfulness strategies to manage racial stress. For example, when students of color engaged in a self-affirmation exercise that involved writing about important life values, it lessened the effects of negative race-based stereotypes on their academic achievement.

Students can also learn reflective coping strategies, which involve managing stressful events by changing the situation, their emotions or their thoughts. Research has found that the use of such strategies can promote positive mental health for students of color exposed to racial microaggressions.

3. Get some exercise: Students of color can make conscious efforts to engage in regular physical activity, as exposure to racial discrimination has been found to lead to a more sedentary lifestyle, which can in turn lead to poorer health.

As long as racism persists in education, students of color may never be able to completely avoid racial battle fatigue. But by being more conscious of this fatigue and how to fight it, they can at least be equipped to deal with it more effectively and prevent it from harming their academic careers and their lives.

At Fisk University, Gymnastics Makes a Giant Leap for HBCUs

Maria

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Jan 14, 2023

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At Fisk University, Gymnastics Makes a Giant Leap for HBCUs

By WILL GRAVES, AP Sports Writer

Jordynn Cromartie entered her senior year of high school facing a daunting choice, one countless other Black gymnasts have faced for decades.

The teenager from Houston wanted to attend a Historically Black College or University. And she wanted to compete in the sport she’s dedicated most of her life to.

One problem. She knew she couldn’t do both, something Cromartie brought up over Thanksgiving dinner while talking to her uncle, Frank Simmons, a member of the Board of Trustees at Fisk University, a private HBCU of around 1,000 students in Nashville, Tennessee.

“He and my aunt were like, ‘Oh you haven’t made a decision, you should come to Fisk,”’ Cromartie said. “I’m like, ‘Well, they don’t have a gymnastics team.’ To go to a college that doesn’t have what I would be working for forever was crazy to me.”

Simmons, stunned, made a promise to his niece.

“Watch,” he told her. “I’ll make it happen.”

He wasn’t kidding.

In the span of a few weeks, Simmons connected Derrin Moore _ the founder of Atlanta-based Brown Girls Do Gymnastics, an organization that’d been trying to drum up support for an HBCU for years _ with Fisk’s trustees. One trustee listened to Moore’s pitch and offered to make a $100,000 donation on the spot if Fisk adopted the sport.

And seemingly in a flash, all the roadblocks and misconceptions Moore had encountered while spending the better part of a decade trying to convince an HBCU to take the leap on an increasingly diverse sport evaporated.

On Friday afternoon at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, barely 14 months after Fisk committed to building a program from the ground up, Cromartie _ now a freshman at her uncle’s alma mater _ and the rest of her teammates will make history when they become the first HBCU to participate in an NCAA women’s gymnastics meet. The Bulldogs will compete against Southern Utah, North Carolina and Washington as part of the inaugural Super 16, an event that also includes perennial NCAA powers like Oklahoma, UCLA and Michigan.

‘I feel like it’s nice to show that Black girls can do it too,” Cromartie said. “We have a team that’s 100% of people of color and you’ve never seen that before anywhere. … I feel like we have a point to prove.”

The face of high-level women’s gymnastics is changing. While athletes of color have excelled at the sport’s highest level for decades, participation among Black athletes in particular has spiked over the last 10 years thanks in part to the popularity of Olympic champions Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles.

Black gymnasts account for around 10% of scholarships at the NCAA Division I level, an increase from 7% in 2012 when Douglas became the first Black woman to Olympic gold. More than 10% of USA Gymnastics members self-identify as Black.

It’s a massive jump from when Corrinne Tarver became the first Black woman to win an NCAA all-around title at Georgia in 1989.

“When I first went to school, there were a scattering of (Black gymnasts),” said Tarver, now the head coach and athletic director at Fisk. “One on this team, one on that team … there wasn’t a lot of African-American gymnasts around back then compared to today.”

Still, it caught Umme Salim-Beasley off guard when she began exploring her college options in the early 1990s. Salim-Beasley grew up in the Washington, D.C., area and competed in the same gym as four-time Olympic medalist Dominique Dawes. Salim-Beasley wanted to go to an HBCU. When she approached an HBCU recruiter at a college fair and told the recruiter she was a gymnast, the response she received shocked her.

“They didn’t see it as a sport for women of color,” said Salim-Beasley, who ended up competing at West Virginia and is now the head coach at Rutgers. “And that was the perception, that gymnastics was not a sport that was welcoming or had enough interest from women of color.”

Which has made the response to Fisk’s inaugural class all the more rewarding.

For years, Moore and Salim-Beasley _ a member of the advisory council at Brown Girls Do Gymnastics _ would struggle just to set up exploratory interviews with HBCU athletics officials. In the months since Fisk’s program launched, Moore and Salim-Beasley have talked to presidents at nine HBCUs.

“People are really interested,” Moore said. “They still have a lot of questions and still not pulling the trigger, but they are reaching out.”

All of which puts Fisk in an enviable if challenging spot. The program is a beta test of sorts as other HBCUs watch from afar to see how Fisk handles the massive logistical and economic hurdles that come with launching a program.

The Bulldogs don’t have an on-campus facility and are currently training at a club gym a few miles from campus, though they are fundraising in hopes of remedying that soon. They are competing this year as an independent while waiting to get their NCAA status sorted out.

And Tarver immediately threw the program into the deep end of the pool. Their inaugural schedule includes meets at Michigan, Georgia and Rutgers.

“It would have been really easy to just put in schools that were not as strong and then make our whole schedule like that and then just hope for the best,” Tarver said. “But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted them to realize that they belong on that stage.”

In that way, Tarver is following through on her recruiting pitch last spring, when she spent hours on Zoom asking young women of color to believe in something that had never existed before.

“Basically I pitched them on the dream,” Tarver said. “I told them they’ll be a part of history. Their names will go down in history as the first HBCU ever.”

It proved to be a far easier sell than Tarver imagined.

Morgan Price initially committed to Arkansas so she could compete with her older sister, Frankie. Yet once Fisk announced it was going to take the ambitious step of competing in 2023, Price felt drawn to the opportunity.

“Since we are the first, it’s kind of special,” Price said. “We get to build it from the ground up.”

And yes, the perks of being the first don’t hurt. Several Bulldogs appeared on “The Jennifer Hudson” talk show in the fall. An Emmy-winning documentarian is following them throughout the season. The splash on social media has been sizable.

So has the splash in real life. When Price returned to her club gym in Texas shortly after committing to Fisk, the energy she felt from younger gymnasts of color as they peppered her with questions was palpable.

“They were telling me, `I can’t wait until I can be recruited so I can be an HBCU gymnast as well,”’ Price said.

Fisk University gymnastics team gathers in a circle for a cheer during practice at the Nashville Gymnastics Training Center on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. On Friday afternoon, Jan. 6, 2023, at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Fisk University will make history when they become the first HBCU to participate in an NCAA women’s gymnastics meet. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)

That’s the big-picture plan. Moore is optimistic several HBCU schools will follow in Fisk’s footsteps in the near future.

They just won’t be the first. That honor will go to the women in the blue-and-gold leotards who will salute the judges for the first time on Friday, as the team filled with athletes who “come from backgrounds where they were kind of told that they weren’t as good,” as Tarver put it, makes history.

Athletes who no longer have to choose between heritage and opportunity.

“Already being an HBCU, we’re the underdogs,“ Cromartie said. “We haven’t had much time to practice. We don’t have the resources of other schools yet … but we are eager to prove we can keep up with everyone else. That we belong.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Connection Between Civil Rights Era, Africa

Maria

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Jan 14, 2023

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Connection Between Civil Rights Era, Africa

By Laura Onyeneho, Houston Defender, Word in Black

As the nation celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we sometimes forget that the struggle for justice and equality isn’t just happening on American soil, it is also impacting Black people all over the world. Dr. King’s fight for civil rights was birthed during Africa’s decolonization era, and his transnational support and advocacy helped elevate the international human rights movement in numerous African countries.

He connected with several African leaders in the struggle to exchange ideas. He boldly embraced his African roots. Pan-Africanism existed to empower Black people worldwide to dismantle the institutions of white supremacy. Some of his sermons connected the common struggles between Africans and African Americans.

Here is a list of some African leaders whose fight for their countries’ liberation against colonialism was influenced by Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement.

NELSON MANDELA (SOUTH AFRICA)

Nelson Mandela was South Africa’s first Black president. Dr. King and Mandela never met, but they fought for the same cause on two different continents. While King worked to elevate the Civil Rights Movement, South Africa was fighting apartheid (a policy of system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race). Mandela spent 27 years in prison during white racist rule in South Africa. After Mandela was released, he traveled to the United States to speak at Yankee Stadium, telling the audience that there was an unbreakable umbilical cord connection with South Africans and Black Americans.

KWAME NKRUMAH (GHANA)

Kwame Nkrumah was the first prime minister and president of Ghana who led the country to independence from Britain in 1957. He was a prominent Pan-African organizer who served as an inspiration to Dr. King, who looked to Nkrumah’s leadership as an example of nonviolent activism. Dr. King and his wife Coretta attended Ghana’s independence ceremony on March 6, 1957, which led to the creation of a lesser know sermon titled “The Birth of a New Nation,” a speech he wrote sharing his experience and impressions of Ghana’s fight for independence.

BABATUNDE OLATUNJI (NIGERIA)

Babatunde Olatunji was a Grammy-nominated Nigerian drummer who protested against racial segregation in the U.S. South and played a role in the generation of Africans who fought for racial injustice in the U.S. The Morehouse College alum encountered ignorance and stereotypes about Africa, which inspired him to educate his fellow classmates by playing drums at university social gatherings at both white and Black churches across Atlanta. The activities were during the height of the Jim Crow era. He became Morehouse’s student body president, which led him to meet Dr. King. His involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. was largely inspired by resistance to colonialism that was occurring in Africa.

PATRICE LUMUMBA (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO)

Patrice Lumumba was a Congolese freedom fighter and the first elected prime minister of Congo (Zaire). Both Lumumba and King have a few things in common. Jan. 17 is the day the U.S. memorializes Dr. King in 2022, and it is the same day Lumumba was executed in 1961. They both died for fighting against oppression of their people. They were both born in the ’20s, Lumumba in 1925 and Dr. King in 1929. Lumumba sought political and economic independence from Belgium after nearly a century of colonial rule.

KENNETH KAUNDA (ZAMBIA)

Kenneth Kaunda became Zambia’s first president and was at the forefront of the fight for independence against British rule. He first emerged on the international scene in the 1950s. He played a central role in the relations between Zambia and the U.S. He visited the U.S. in 1960, where he met Dr. King in Atlanta. King inspired him to begin his own civil disobedience strategy upon his return to Zambia to organize a rights campaign.

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This post was originally published on Defender Network

It’s Time to Know the True History of Dr. King and Native Americans

Maria

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Jan 14, 2023

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It’s Time to Know the True History of Dr. King and Native Americans

By David Carr, Word in Black

On Monday, January 16^,the United States will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and pay homage to the civil rights leader who helped move the nation to live up to its potential.

While much has been written about King’s community organizing, his guidance in the Southern Leadership Conference, and his amazing rhetorical skills, we still have much to learn about the civil rights leader who dared to dream. It is not widely known that while King obviously was serious about securing civil rights for African Americans and healing the wounds and divisions between Black and white, he was also a vocal and proud supporter of Native American civil rights.

Let us remember his legacy of justice, dignity, humanity, and intersectionality.

King specifically advocated for the desegregation of Native Americans and inspired much of the modern-day movement for Native rights, including water rights and tribal sovereignty.

In his 1963 book, “Why We Can’t Wait,” King did not hold back with it came to his feelings on the treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government:

“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles of racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its Indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.”

In the late 1950s, King collaborated with the tribal leaders of the Poarch Band Creek Indians. He helped them work towards desegregating their schools in southern Alabama. The tribe reached out to King after learning of his desegregation campaign in Birmingham. He immediately became involved.

At the time, lighter-skinned Native children were allowed to ride school buses and attend desegregated, previously all-white schools, but darker-skinned Native children from the same band were not allowed to ride those same buses, even if the children were all coming from the same household.

With King’s intervention, Native children from the Poarch band were allowed to ride the buses no matter their skin color, marking a major step toward desegregation. As quiet as it’s kept, at the 1963 March on Washington, there was a large Native American contingent, including many from South Dakota.

Moreover, the civil rights movement inspired the Native American rights movement of the 1960s and 70s, along with many of its leaders. This includes but is not limited to the takeover of The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office, the occupation of Alcatraz Island by the Indians of All Tribes, and the second siege at Wounded Knee staged by the Oglala Sioux Nation and The American Indian Movement (AIM).

At the 1963 March on Washington, there was a large Native American contingent.

John E. Echohawk, a member of the Pawnee Tribe, is an attorney and has been a leader of the Native American self-determination movement for more than three decades, thanks to the influence of King. In 1970, Echohawk organized the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), which was modeled after the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund.

For the past 30 years, NARF has served as a political advocate and legal defender of Native American tribal nations in cases pertaining to tribal sovereignty and treaty enforcement; land, water, and fishing rights; religious and cultural freedoms; and issues of taxation, gaming, and Indian trust monies.

At the 24th Navajo Nation Council in 2020, speaker Seth Damon commended Dr. King for remembering the plight of Native Americans and the genocide perpetrated against Indigenous Peoples of this land by the country’s founders. Damon said, “We honor the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King. He was not only a champion and leader for Black people, but Native Americans everywhere.”

It’s easy to compartmentalize Martin Luther King Jr. into one movement, to one type of message, and to one specific cause. In an age that celebrates misinformation and dismisses historical facts, it becomes easy to overlook specific instances of historical intersectionality and understanding.

He was a vocal supporter of Native American civil rights.

The truth is King was a true leader when it came to the fight for civil rights for African Americans. He was a firebrand when it came to getting rid of segregation laws, but he was also adamantly opposed to the Vietnam war, and he became immersed in the idea of economic civil rights.

He organized with Miles Horton in the Appalachians, strategized with leaders in the Chicano civil rights movement, and, yes, he was a vocal supporter of Native American civil rights.

As we remember King on his birthday this year, let’s truly try and remember his ENTIRE legacy. Let us look at the ties he created amongst all peoples during the most turbulent of times. Let us remember his legacy of justice, dignity, humanity, and intersectionality. Let’s celebrate the ongoing idea of making his often-spoken-of dream a reality for all.

How the Distortion of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s Words Enables More, not Less, Racial Division within American Society

Maria

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Jan 13, 2023

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How the Distortion of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s Words Enables More, not Less, Racial Division within American Society

By Hajar Yazdiha, The Conversation

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas is just the latest conservative lawmaker to misuse the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to judge a person on character and not race.

In the protracted battle to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, Roy, a Republican, nominated a Black man, Byron Donalds, a two-term representative from Florida who had little chance of winning the seat. Considered a rising star in the GOP, Donalds has opposed the very things that King fought for and ultimately was assassinated for – nonviolent demonstrations and voting rights protections.

Calling Donalds a “dear friend,” Roy noted the selection by Democrats of another Black man, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and invoked King’s words.

“For the first time in history, there have been two Black Americans placed into nomination for speaker of the House,” Roy said. “However, we do not seek to judge people by the color of their skin, but rather, the content of their character.”

As a scholar who researches social movements, racial politics and democracy, I have seen the consequences of the misuse of King’s words play out everywhere from the halls of Congress to corporate diversity training sessions to local school board meetings.

In Roy’s case, the invocation of King’s legacy was an attempt to hide Donalds’ outspoken right-wing political views, including his vote with 146 others to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Roy’s speech also omits Donalds’ support for voting reform laws in Florida that many Black civil rights leaders understood as efforts to disenfranchise minority voters.

As scholars, civil rights activists and King’s own children have long pointed out, uses of King’s words, especially by right-wing conservatives, are too often attempts to weaponize his memory against the multicultural democracy of which King could only dream.

A sanitized MLK

As every Martin Luther King Jr. Day nears on the third Monday in January, politicians across the political spectrum – including those who opposed establishing the national holiday in 1983 – issue their heartfelt dedications to King or quote him in their own speeches.

Yet January is also a month that commemorates a darker, more recent memory of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists.

The two issues – misuses of King’s memory and the Jan. 6 attacks – may seem like unrelated phenomena.

Yet in my book, “The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement,” I show how there is a direct line from distortions of King’s words and legacy to right-wing attacks on multicultural democracy and contemporary politics.

The misuses of King are not accidental.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a sanitized version of King was part of a conservative political strategy for swaying white moderates to support President Ronald Reagan’s reelection by making King’s birthday a national holiday.

Even after Reagan finally signed the King holiday into law in 1983, he would write letters of assurance to angry political allies that only a selective version of King would be commemorated.

That version was free of not only the racial politics that shaped the civil rights movement but also of the vision of systemic change that King envisioned. In addition, Reagan’s version left out the views that King held against the Vietnam War.

Instead, the GOP’s sanitized version only comprises King’s vision of a colorblind society – at the expense of the deep, systemic change that King believed was needed to achieve a society in which character was more important than race.

Weaponizing America’s racist past

This interpretation of King’s memory would become a powerful political tool.

Increasingly through the 1980s, right-wing social movements – from the gun rights and family values coalitions to nativists and white supremacists – deployed King’s memory to claim they were the new minorities fighting for their own rights.

These groups claimed that white Christians were the real victims of multicultural democracy and in fact were “the new Blacks.”

This false version of social reality eventually evolved into the “great replacement theory,” the far-right conspiracy theory, espoused by public figures like Tucker Carlson on Fox News, that white people are being demographically and culturally replaced with nonwhite peoples and that white existence is under threat.

In these distortions, gun rights activists called themselves the new Rosa Parks, anti-abortion activists declared themselves freedom riders and anti-gay groups claimed themselves protectors of King’s Christian vision.

These distortions of the past were not just rhetorical.

Over time, these political strategies had powerful effects and generated what appears in my view as an alternative social reality that, for many white Americans, began to feel like the only reality.

Misinformation threatens democracy

Through the making of these alternative histories, right-wing strategists such as Steve Bannon could stir up white right-wing voters to “reclaim” and “take back” America.

Such was the politics that led to Donald Trump’s 2016 election and shaped a presidential administration that rolled back civil rights, emboldened white supremacists and banned anti-racism training.

Through the misrepresentation of the racial past, this alternate social reality hardened.

Ultimately, these revisionist narratives have fractured the collective understanding of who we are, how we got here and where we go next. In my view, moving forward means honestly confronting the often ugly past and the deep roots of white supremacy that shaped it then and now.

It is only by facing, rather than ignoring, the complexity of America’s history that the “beloved community” that King once envisioned can be realized.

This article was updated to correct the year of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Black Films to Watch During MLK Day

Maria

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Jan 13, 2023

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By Laura Onyeneho, Houston Defender, Word in Black

The Defender compiled a list of movies to watch while commemorating the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday.

“SELMA” (2014)

Ava DuVernay, the award-winning visionary behind such works as “Queen Sugar” and “When They See us,” directed “Selma,” a historical drama centered around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the fight for women’s voting rights, Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

“COLIN IN BLACK AND WHITE” (2021)

Sports fans know Colin Kaepernick as the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback. Others know him to be an American activist who sparked one of the biggest sports controversies in history: kneeling during the U.S national anthem to protest racial injustices. This is a six-part autobiographical limited series on Netflix created by Kaepernick, Ava DuVernay, and Michael Starrbury. Kaepernick narrated the series to officially address where everything started.

“ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI” (2020)

This is directorial debut of Academy Award-winning actress Regina King based on the fictionalized accounts a February 1964 meeting of Malcolm X, Muhammed Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke grappling with their places within the major changes of the Civil Rights Movement.

“MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM” (2020)

This is Chadwick Boseman’s final screen appearance, starring opposite Viola Davis in an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a tense recording session with the “Mother of the Blues” in Chicago in 1927. She was among one of the first blues singers to record music. She opened doors for a new generation of blues singers while dealing with the complexities of racism and artistic exploitation.

“BETTY AND CORETTA” (2013)

When we reflect on the Civil Rights era, we often focus more on the bravery and sacrifice of Black men. “Betty and Coretta” shos a different angle. It depicts the friendship between Coretta Scott King (wife of Dr. King) and Dr. Betty Shabazz (wife of Malcolm X) after their husbands’ assassinations. The television movie reveals their continued commitment to fight for equality and the strength to raise families well after their husbands’ deaths.

Mental Wellness Tips for the New Year

Maria

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Jan 13, 2023

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By Dr. Denise Hooks-Anderson, St. Louis American, Word in Back

January is Mental Health Month, and at the beginning of the year most people spend a lot of time making resolutions regarding their physical health.

“I’m going to exercise more. I’m going to eat less sugar. I’m going to eat more fruits and veggies.” All these goals are important and needed for most people. However, I want to encourage everyone to also prioritize their mental health.

The recent death of the former Ellen Show Co-Host, Twitch, impressed upon me the hidden terrors of mental illness. Twitch brought so much joy and laughter to thousands of people, yet he was hurting on the inside. How many of us are also wearing masks that hide our true pain?

Let’s be honest. These last two years have been extremely challenging. Our way of life has changed. At times, it just seemed like we transitioned from one catastrophe to the next. The pandemic. Social unrest. The economy. The attack on the US Capital. The war in Ukraine. The election. These were just a sampling of the issues. We have not even touched upon the personal struggles which stress most American households such as finances, interpersonal relationships, and the lack of a work-life balance. Unless you are a robot, you are not immune to these situations.

As we enter 2023, I want to share a few tips to help us be mindful of mental wellness and to recognize when we or our loved ones need help.

Tip #1

Go to bed. Not only is the amount of sleep obtained important but also the quality of the sleep. For instance, if you slept for 9 hours but still felt sluggish the next morning, the quality of your sleep was suboptimal. Lack of sleep increases your risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and poor mental health. Just one night of poor sleep can cause you to experience a bad mood the next day, have less focus, and increase your likelihood to be involved in a motor vehicle crash. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that adults get 7 or more hours of sleep per night.

Tip #2

Try yoga. Per the National Institute of Health, yoga supports mindfulness, stress management, mental health, and quality sleep. Yoga may improve your energy level and boost your mood. Yoga may also lessen negative feelings over time. If you are like me, yoga was not a form of exercise that I associated with people of color. Truthfully, I thought yoga was just for skinny white women. Nevertheless, I have expanded my repertoire of exercises and have incorporated yoga into my routine which has resulted in improved flexibility and more restful sleep.

Tip #3

Just walk. I cannot say enough about walking, particularly walking outside. Walking allows our brains to take a break from the clutter inside our heads. Walking lessens anxiety and improves depression. It is a scientific fact that sunlight can improve our moods. For instance, some people suffer from a condition called seasonal affective disorder which is characterized by depression around the same time each year. The treatment for this disorder is phototherapy.

Prioritizing mental health takes intentionality. It also takes a collective effort from families, communities, houses of worship, and local governments.

Don’t wait until your friend or spouse has a crisis. Let’s develop a habit of routinely checking in with one another. Getting rest, doing yoga, and walking are wonderful ways to maintain and improve mental health but sometimes that alone is not enough. Let’s also normalize seeking professional help when needed.

If you are thinking about suicide or worried about a friend or loved one harming themselves, please dial 988 to be connected to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

This post was originally published on St. Louis American

MLK Weekend to Feature Tributes, Commitments to Race Equity

Maria

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Jan 13, 2023

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MLK Weekend to Feature Tributes, Commitments to Race Equity

By AARON MORRISON, AP National Writer

Annual tributes and commemorations of the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which begin nationwide on Friday, typically include a mix of politics, faith and community service.

For this year’s celebration, the 37th since its federal recognition in 1986, a descendant of King hopes to spur progress by helping more Americans personalize the ongoing struggle for racial equity and harmony. Bernice King, daughter of the late civil rights icon, said people must move beyond platitudes and deepen their own commitments to the needed progress.

“We need to change our thinking,” said King, who is CEO of The King Center in Atlanta.

Under the theme “It Starts With Me,” the center launched its slate of Martin Luther King Jr. Day events on Thursday with youth and adult summits to educate the public on ways to transform unjust systems in the U.S.

The summits were streamed online and are available for replay on the center’s social media accounts.

“It seems like we’re going through these cycles, because we’re trying to approach everything with the same mindset that all of this (racial inequity) was created,” King told The Associated Press.

“Change can be very small,” she said, “but transformation means that now we changed the character, form, and nature of something. That’s something we have not seen yet.”

Other King holiday weekend events include a statue unveiling in Boston, a symposium on police brutality in Akron, Ohio, and community service projects in many U.S. cities. The holiday kicks off another year of advocacy on a racial justice agenda — from police reforms and strengthening voting rights to solutions on economic and educational disparities — that has been stymied by culture wars and partisan gridlock in Washington and nationwide.

Residents of Selma, Alabama, which played a central role in King’s legacy, woke up to extensive damage Friday from a deadly storm system that spawned tornadoes across the South. The city became a flashpoint of the civil rights movement when state troopers viciously attacked Black people who marched nonviolently for voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965.

King wasn’t present for the march known as “Bloody Sunday,” but he joined a subsequent procession that successfully crossed the bridge toward the Capitol in Montgomery. The Pettus Bridge was unscathed by Thursday’s storm.

On Sunday morning, President Joe Biden is due to speak at a commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the historic Atlanta house of worship where King preached from 1960 until his assassination in 1968. The church is pastored by the Rev. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who recently won election to a full term as Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator.

And on Monday, the federal observance of the King holiday, commemorations continue in Atlanta, as well as in the nation’s capital and beyond.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who got his start as a civil rights organizer in his teens as youth director of an anti-poverty project of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will hold his annual King holiday events in Washington, D.C., and New York on Monday. Martin Luther King III is expected to attend Sharpton’s breakfast gala in Washington with his wife, Drum Major Institute President Arndrea Waters King, who will be honored alongside former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Monday afternoon in New York City, Sharpton, the founder and president of the National Action Network, is scheduled to convene more than 30 prominent state and local elected officials for a public policy forum at the House of Justice, his organization’s headquarters in Harlem.

In the decades since its establishment, the King holiday has become an opportunity for elected officials and candidates seeking office to establish their civil rights and social justice credentials. Bernice King said partisanship among politicians has been a major obstacle to legislative solutions on civil rights.

Overcoming that is “going to require elevating to a place where your loyalty is to humanity, not to party,” she said.

“If we don’t find humane ways to create policies and implement practices out of those policies, we’re going to continue in this vicious cycle of a downward spiral towards destruction and chaos.”

Outside of establishment politics, many King holiday weekend events are opportunities for Americans to give back, reflect on the civil rights icon’s legacy or deal locally with racial discrimination in their own communities.

A massive monument to Martin Luther King Jr. is scheduled to be dedicated Friday in Boston, where the leader first met his wife, Coretta Scott King. In the early 1950s, he was a doctoral student in theology at Boston University and she was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music.

The $10 million sculpture called “The Embrace” consisting of four intertwined arms was inspired by a photo of the Kings embracing when King Jr. learned he had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. It was designed byHank Willis Thomas and MASS Design Group and was selected out of 126 proposals.

Imari Paris Jeffries, executive director of EmbraceBoston, the organization behind the memorial, noted the significance of the sculpture’s placement at the Boston Common, America’s oldest public park and a high traffic area with millions of city residents and visitors walking its paths every year.

“I think Boston has this reputation of being this city of heroes and abolitionists, like W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass, simultaneously with this reputation of not being friendly and in some cases being described as racist. So there’s this tension between these two images of Boston. Having the memorial there is part of our intention to transform our city’s perspective.”

In Akron, Ohio, the family of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man killed after police officers shot at him 46 times as he fled last July, will hold a symposium on public safety and mental health with local civil rights leaders on Saturday. Walker’s case received widespread attention from activists, including from the King family.

And for the seventh year, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will mark a post-King holiday National Day of Racial Healing. On Tuesday, communities nationwide are scheduled to hold town halls to continue dialog on healing that the foundation says is needed to achieve racial equity.

“Regardless of who you are, there’s a journey of healing that everyone must consider,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. “We’ve all been impacted by racism.”