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By John T. Crestwell, Jr.
January 16, 2005
There’s a most informative
documentary I’ve been watching, made by PBS in 1998, called Africans
in America. There was one story that has really stood out for me
about an African named Anthony Johnson who had come over to the New
World, along with several hundred poor Europeans from England,
attempting to work his way toward citizenship. In those days before
the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade became the norm, if you came across
the water, regardless of the color of your skin, and you worked for
three to five years in the New World as an indentured servant,
clearing forests and cultivating fields, you could buy your freedom
and then perhaps in time buy land and get other indentured servants
to help you cultivate your fields and crops. Johnson fulfilled his
commitment and bought some land and did very well. He was able to
pass his land on to his children after his death. This system seemed
to be working well although labor was quite intensive in early
America. The work had to be done though and this system allowed it
to get done. But, like so many times in world history, narcissism
and greed and hatred move us from the reciprocal relationship toward
the one-sided dictatorship; from the inclusive to the exclusive.
England would soon change her laws regarding indentured servitude
because the word got out in Europe that the labor was hard and the
numbers of folk volunteering to go to the New World waned dwindled.
Needing a labor force, England would change her laws. Whites could
still come over and till the soil for a short period but Blacks
would be given a life sentence. Enter the profitability, the
economics of the slave trade and now you have developed a new system
of free labor in the New World that would produce millions in
revenue but would also victimize millions in servitude.
What about the Johnson family? Well, the land passed on for a while
but eventually it would go back to England and a new owner. This
short-lived freedom for the Johnson clan was over…
I’ve been thinking—what if??? What if England found a better way to
cultivate the land? What if the rich, those in power had the will to
share the bounty not just with their own countrymen but with those
who were there already—the Natives to the land? What if we uplifted
the worth and dignity of all people no matter their color from the
beginning? What if our ambition was in line with our compassion?
What if Johnson’s legacy could have been honored? Think about it…
One shift in policy and law had a tremendous ripple effect which
ends up creating a trade in human souls lasting over 300 years; and
countless lives were destroyed. What if there were more foresight
and vision, the system of slavery, which we are all heir to, could
have been avoided, and the issue of race which still lives as a
cancer in the mind of our society could have been a benign thought.
This is the power we have. We have a moral responsibility to think
and to make sure the means by which we live justify the ends for
which we live, as King would say… One immoral deed can have
long-term negative effects and create irreparable damage. But one
righteous deed, one sacrifice for the cause of justice, one voice
for truth can also have a ripple effect and change the face of this
world. One stone, one pebble, one rock creates many ripples…
There was a ROCK that gave us about twelve years of dedicated
service in America. This ROCK became the moral voice of our nation,
in a country that had become quite comfortable, quite adjusted to
segregation and discrimination. This ROCK revealed that his nation
needed to look in the mirror and see that she was being hypocritical
to her ideals.
I’m sure you have figured it out that Martin Luther King, Jr. was
the ROCK which created many ripples in our society—ripples that
continue to this day.
I got a call from a friend, Duane McClure, and he was telling me to
hurry and tune into AM 570 because some journalist, I can’t remember
his name, was bashing the King Holiday. He was saying that the
“liberals” took away Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday
combining them into President’s day but that we still have a King
Holiday. He said we should change the name to Civil Rights Day and
lump all the civil rights people into that day. He said that we need
to remember how great Washington was in securing America’s identity
and how instrumental Lincoln was in uniting the north and south. He
said they contributed much more than King… Then he began to talk
about the shortcomings King had and that he was basically not
righteous enough to warrant a holiday; and this radio-show host, as
if he is a saint, said that he would not think twice about King on
the day off. Of course I was livid. I tried calling into the
station. I must have hit re-dial sixty times. When someone finally
picked up the phone, they said the show was on tape then abruptly
hung up. You know, I don’t care if this so called journalist does
not think about Dr. King on his day off. I don’t even care if he
does not like King. But if he read just a little bit, if he did a
wee-bit of research, he would at least have shown more respect for a
man who did more for the United States, in the area of civil rights,
than probably any other human in American history. King made us look
at and face up to the principles we created—the ideals our power
structure made reality. And this is something Washington, who had
slaves that were not well taken care of (many died of starvation)
and Lincoln, who supported a plan to move Blacks out of America and
to Liberia (he didn’t want to deal with the problem) well, this is
something they never did! King did something these American legends
did not even consider. He asked that we see the humanity and worth
in all human beings no matter their place of birth, their station in
life, or the color of their skin. I like the words of Robert Penn
Warren who wrote an article called, “A Dearth of Heroes”. He said,
“Have we, in America, had a hero in our time—that is, since World
War II? I can think of only one man with a serious claim, Martin
Luther King, Jr. The theme was high, the occasion noble, the stage
open to the world’s eye, the courage clear, and against odds. And
martyrdom came to purge all dross away. King seems made for the folk
consciousness—a true hero.”
I want to say more now about how important it is for all of us to
respect the King Holiday…
From about 1640 onward in the New World, this nation’s elite
believed it was natural, lawful and basically okay to have two
societies, one civilized and the other “the untouchables”, the
slaves, uncivilized, who had the job of handling the extensive labor
so that prosperity could be realized. As it is said, “They made
cotton king.” This idea, this mythos of superiority/inferiority was
inherited by our Founding Fathers and the privileged of that day.
Even though America broke ties with England, early Americans saw
freedom as something that was for those of European descendent only.
The idea of Native Americans or Asians or Africans being equal was
not a consideration. They were not cognizant of the freedom that
supercedes the tribal. This lasted hundreds of years until the
Emancipation Proclamation but even after that, the economic state of
most Africans in America was still not much improved because true
freedom means equal protection under the law to earn a fair wage and
to be given a fair chance in the labor-force; a fair chance to live
the American Dream. Blacks were not enslaved physically, but they
were still mentally and psychologically slaves. They were systemic
slaves. And so, society up to 1956 when King was at his first Church
in Montgomery, Alabama, still lived a separate and unequal reality.
Few Blacks could vote. If they tried to vote, fear tactics were used
to suppress them from voting; there were poll taxes, tests had to be
taken to see if one was, quote, unquote “smart” enough to vote. In
substance, most of America in the 50’s was still living in a slavery
mentality reality—if that makes sense… Now King, in this era, is
first a local hero and minister who helps organize a boycott of the
segregated buses in Montgomery. This achievement leads to other
accomplishments like desegregating many restaurants and lunch
counters and later getting voting rights ensuring that many southern
Blacks would not be intimidated away from the polls. He was made the
leader of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People), a national movement, and SCLC (Southern Christian
Leadership Conference) and became the leader for civil rights
particularly in the south. He was jailed over twenty times, stabbed
once, assaulted by angry mobs during marches on at least four
occasions; it’s obvious he had great courage.
After his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 during the March
on Washington, he became a national figure and would later, at 35
years of age, become the youngest person in America to win the Noble
Peace Prize. Over the course of his life many laws in America
changed to reflect that African Americans were also heir to the
fortunes of America. It should be noted that almost all civil rights
legislature passed during his time. Certainly, he asked for his
untimely death when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam stating
that it was unjust and misguided. Like a true prophet, he lost
presidential support and was in J. Edgar Hoover’s hands now for a
certain death. Even many in his organization felt he was wrong and
out of place talking about the war. But he would boldly say, “I’m
not a consensus leader. I follow my conscience.” And his inner voice
called him to be an outer voice crying out in the wilderness for
America to “live out the true meaning of its creed.” For King, how
could America be working in a distant land trying to take the
splinter out of Vietnam’s eye when it had a log on fire in its own
eye.
Now, what was Dr. King doing to our society when he said we are all
equal and all God’s children? For me, he was changing the
mythological construction of our society and that is insane,
revolutionary, idealistic and righteous! He was forcing our
civilization to look at what it professed with its lips but did
otherwise. The backlash and hate manifested because he was fighting
a long and established cultural ideology. The foundation was firm.
You ever tried uprooting a tree? It’s quite difficult. But every now
and then, a strong wind will come along and every so often one of
those great oaks come tumbling down. When you challenge the
establishment, challenge the status quo, you are asking for a
backlash that could cost you your life. But if you are persistent
and your message is true, eventually, perhaps not in your day, but
eventually, the tree will come down.
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