Happy Martin Luther King Day!

I know Its a bit late (but I'm not American and the day passes us by, besides better late then never) so I thought a quick reposting of some interesting videos about the late champion of equality, was in order.

A discussion about Martin Luther King's Ideals and hidden radical streak that has often been forgotten in the favour of the image of the benign fatherly figure who preached moderation tolerance and extreme patience.


The ground-breaking speech denouncing the evils of the Vietnam war, this marked the end of the White Liberal love affair with his civil rights campaigns. Many including the President Lyndon Baines Johnson viewed King's opposition to the war to be a betrayal. Apparently blacks should have the right to vote in all 50 states and be allowed to sit in any vacant seat on a bus but how dare they develop and practice there independent moral code and political agenda.

Its my personal favourite but I should warn you there are graphic image of injury and death in the video.


And finally we have another commentary on the core of King's radical beliefs and an examination of the phenomena of MLK day and its paradoxical role of both giving more attention to the man whilst obscuring many parts of his original message and actions.
This by Mumia Abu Jamal former Black Panther member and Death Row inmate. So he knows what constitues a radical of the Black Liberation Movement.


He was gunned down at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee on the 4th of April 1968. He was in the town to give support to a local Black Sanitation workers during there strike, over unfair pay and conditions. He publicly stated Racism was one of the Triumvirate of Evils with Militarism and Capitalism. His killer James Earl Ray was a white supremacist whom idolised Ian Smith and considered applying for immigration to the white settler run Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) the day before his murder his plane to Memphis was delayed due to a bomb threat, when he did make it to Memphis he made his last speech the "I've been to the Mountaintop"

"Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively...the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it. We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."