Showing posts with label Martin Luther King Jr.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martin Luther King Jr.. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

50 years ago tonight in #Memphis. What I saw. The night I won't ever forget..."Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King, #MLK



Regular readers of this blog will recall that I've written before that though I was born in San Antonio, I was a seven-year old First Grader growing-up in Memphis when Dr. King was assassinated there.
On the night of April 4, 1968, my family and I went out to our neighborhood McDonald's and when we returned to our apt., I walked into the living room and turned on our black-and-white TV, and within no time, everything in the world changed... see my Instagram post about it below.



CBS News: CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite announces the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis.

ABC News video: ABC News correspondent Tom Jarriel reports LIVE from Memphis, with Bob Young and Peter Jennings reporting from New York.

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King, Sept. 1962. #MLK I was a young kid living in #Memphis with my family that April night in 1968 when we returned home from a trip to #McDonalds and like so many nights before, I raced to the TV set in the living room to beat my two younger sisters to be the one who turned on the TV. As my parents walked in and settled down on the family couch, to see what was on TV, literally, within one minute, came the Breaking News that Dr. King had been shot elsewhere in the city. And the news only got worse as the night went on as news soon confirmed that Dr. King had died as a result of the assassination attempt, and soon there was widespread looting and violence in Memphis, the very things he had adamantly opposed. Eventually came the news that the city was under curfew, and sometime before midnight, because my family lived in a new-ish apt. complex that was on the same road as the nearby Armory, my parents and I and many of our neighbors watched in silence from the sidewalk/curb as tanks driven by members of the mobilized National Guard drove towards downtown Memphis, because the city's powers-that-be had decided that this would show the people who was boss. As my mother tells the story, one of my neighbors remarked on the irony of U.S. Army tanks being used to try to stop violence by Americans who were upset about the murder of a great man who had won the #NobelPeacePrize. It was the first time I remember ever hearing this strange word: #irony.
A post shared by Hallandale Beach Blog (@hbbtruth) on


"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King, Sept. 1962. #MLK

I was a young kid living in #Memphis with my family that April night in 1968 when we returned home from a trip to #McDonaldsand like so many nights before, I raced to the TV set in the living room to beat my two younger sisters to be the one who turned on the TV.

As my parents walked in and settled down on the family couch, to see what was on TV, literally, within one minute, came the Breaking News that Dr. King had been shot elsewhere in the city.
And the news only got worse as the night went on as news soon confirmed that Dr. King had died as a result of the assassination attempt, and soon there was widespread looting and violence in Memphis, the very things he had adamantly opposed.

Eventually came the news that the city was under curfew, and sometime before midnight, because my family lived in a new-ish apt. complex that was on the same road as the nearby Armory, my parents and I and many of our neighbors watched in silence from the sidewalk/curb as tanks driven by members of the mobilized National Guard drove towards downtown Memphis, because the city's powers-that-be had decided that this would show the people who was boss.

As my mother tells the story, one of my neighbors remarked on the irony of U.S. Army tanks being used to try to stop violence by Americans who were upset about the murder of a great man who had won the #NobelPeacePrize.

It was the first time I remember ever hearing this strange word: #irony.

We moved to South Florida three months later, my family having had its fill of Memphis, arriving at MIA on a very warm July day via Delta Airlines the day after Larry Csonka signed his first contract with the Dolphins, which was front page news in the Miami Herald, as I could tell when we walked past the old-fashioned-vending machines at the airport.


Thursday, August 29, 2013

Dear Europe: No, it wasn't your imagination. In the year 2013, the only current African-American member of the 100-member U.S. Senate was NOT invited to the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. It wasn't an oversight, it was intentional by the event organizers. And some African-American members of the U.S. news media are quick to say they're happy about that decision. Really! When Obama arrives in Sweden soon, if you see some of these "journalists," like DeWayne Wickham, you might want to ask them about that


Dear Europe: 

No, it wasn't your imagination. 
In the year 2013, the only current African-American member of the 100-member U.S. Senate was NOT invited to the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. 
It wasn't an oversight, it was intentional by the event organizers. 
And some African-American members of the U.S. news media are quick to say they're happy about that decision. Really! 
When Obama arrives in Sweden soon, if you see some of these "journalists," like DeWayne Wickham, you might want to ask them about that.




Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog
Where Was Senator Scott?
by David W. Almasi
August 28, 2013 at 10:12 PM
This morning, the Project 21 office received an e-mail asking for the organization’s comment on the fact that Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush would not be attending today’s event to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.
Obviously, the person asking for the comment assumed it a slight among the highest order of racism that neither living Republican president would be there while Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were there with the current Commander-in-Chief.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyridenour/2013/8/28/where-was-senator-scott.html

Nobody is suggesting that South Carolina's junior U.S. Senator Tim Scott should've been speaking at the ceremony. 
Nobody -not even his supporters.
But why wasn't he even invited?

Here's what all honest and smart people I know inherently know, regardless of ideology.

If this had been a scene from a documentary film being directed by any number of the top dozen or so American film directors of the past 50 years, say Steven Spielberg or Sydney Pollack, they'd have figured out a way to not only shoot it on a day when it didn't rain, they'd have figured out a powerful way to end the film by showing via quick succession of shots of the assembled crowd the many elected Black leaders that make up American society, and show that it was many people, familiar and unfamiliar who benefitted from Dr. King's words.
Not just Barack Obama.
You know, inclusive, not exclusive.
Unlike the event organizers' way of doing things.






CNN Guest: Why Should ‘Appointed’ Sen. Tim Scott Have Been Invited to MLK Anniversary?
by Noah Rothman, 5:13 pm, August 28th, 2013
Video at:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-guest-why-should-appointed-sen-tim-scott-have-been-invited-to-mlk-anniversary/

Mini-History lesson for Today: Something to keep in mind as you watch this video excerpt.


In case some of you longtime readers of the blog have forgotten, or, you are one of the newer readers to the the blog who never knew in the first place, I was one of Bill Clinton's first supporters in Northern Virginia in early 1991, though to be honest, I'd been waiting since 1988 for him to run. 

1992 Bill Clinton for President buttons
1992 Bill Clinton for President buttons from my collection

(c) 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

I actually thought long-and-hard about running to be a DNC delegate to the 1992 Convention in Los Angeles from my Congressional District, then as now represented by pugnacious Jim MoranIn fact, in early 1991, I was the first person in the whole state to ask the Virginia Democratic Party down in Richmond for the information and forms I needed to file and run as a delegate. (They didn't have them yet.)

Because I'm me and have my personality, interests and background, and was blessed to have as my best friend in all of the world when I lived in the Washington, D.C. area in the 1990's, a wonderful woman was not only from the same small town in Arkansas that Bill Clinton was born in, Hope, a woman whose own mother had grown-up across the street from him before he and his mother moved him down to Hot Springs with her parents while she was out-of-state studying nursing -my friend had a framed photo of herself while in high school and then-Governor Clinton on her desk at the National Press Building two blocks from The White House, where she worked as a producer and sometimes on-air reporter and was a member of the White House press corps- there is almost nothing about Bill Clinton pre-1997 that I don't know, haven't heard and then heard repeated as well.


My "license" to talk about Arkansas, which I first saw in 1965
My "license" to talk about Arkansas -which I first saw in 1965. That is, my Arkansas key chain 'license' is courtesy of Shannon, my thoughtful, beautiful, brainy, beguiling, globe-trotting and multi-lingual friend. (And Asian foreign policy expert, too!)
So, that said, since many of you might not know it, when Clinton worked on Capitol Hill as an intern, he worked in the office of one of the most-powerful senators in the country, especially on foreign policy: Arkansas Sen. J. William Fulbright
(Correct, the Fullbright of the Fulbright Program.)
Another thing they had in common besides their great love of Arkansas was that like Clinton, Fulbright was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.

But whatever else he was besides being a strong voice for an American foreign policy that has a strong multi-lateral approach, Senator Fulbright, being from Arkansas and having the background he had, was also an ardent segregationist.
No, being a Rhodes Scholar didn't prevent him from voting against the 1964 Voting Rights Act, as did a powerful senator from neighboring Tennessee -Al Gore's father, Al Gore, Sr.

(Blog historical nugget: My family moved from San Antonio where I and a younger sister were born, to Memphis on Easter Weekend in 1965. We left in 1968 for Miami just months after Dr. King was assassinated there while supporting striking city sanitation workers. I was there for all the rioting. Saw the Army tanks come rolling down the street from the armory towards downtown. Not that most people appearing regularly on TV today could even tell you who Dr. King was in Memphis to see unless a show producer whispered it into their hidden earpiece. But history matters!)     

The Voting Rights Act of 1964 only passed because of the votes and influence of Northern Republicans in Congress, and among the Black Republican voters in New York who championed it was someone whom you may've heard of: Jackie Robinson.

Did you know that Jackie Robinson was a Republican?

I'm guessing not.

Yes, given the generally sorry state of political discourse today, and the embarrassing lack of knowledge about basic American history among many people who regularly appear on U.S. TV, to say nothing of the Mainstream Media's well-known bias for liberal orthodoxy and hiring policies, there are a lot of otherwise smart people who would prefer that you not learn the true history that happened, but rather the history that best supports their political narrative and view of the world.
But as we know, facts are funny.
Sometimes they get in the way.

That's why in this particular case, with smug and history-deficient USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham in the video above, it's great that he was given the opportunity to publicly show that when it comes to all sorts of common knowledge, he's someone who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground -and certainly shouldn't be lecturing anyone on anything.

He's just further proof of the powerful role of the Peter Principle in American journalism.

And see, now you know that he's a horse's ass, so that mystery is solved and the next time you see him on TV, you'll know enough to change the channel.
The worst part of all is not his embarrassing performance, and showing his ignorance, but that by CNN putting someone of his ilk on the air, it prevented someone we've never heard of with something original and insightful from appearing and sharing their insight.
I'd love to play him in Jeopardy!!!

-----
The State (Columbia, South Carolina)
A Tim Scott-Rick Wade U.S. Senate race would be historic
Published: August 29, 2013
TIM DOMINICK/TDOMINICK@THESTATE.

By Warren Bolton — Associate Editor
http://www.thestate.com/2013/08/29/2947208/bolton-a-tim-scott-rick-wade-us.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._William_Fulbright

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Video: Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial unveiled; official opening is August 28th; watch the Virtual Tour


The MLK Memorial, which officially opens on August 28th, is located by the Tidal Basin between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials on The National Mall, Washington, D.C.
Virtual Tour of Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Washington, D.C.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/martin-luther-king-jr-memorial-unveiled/2011/08/22/gIQAN3CZWJ_video.html
Regular readers of this blog will recall that I've written before that though I was born in San Antonio, I was a seven-year old First Grader growing-up in Memphis when Dr. King was assassinated there.
On the night of April 4, 1968, my family and I went out to our neighborhood McDonald's and when we got back to our apt., I walked into the living room and turned on our black-and-white TV, and within a few minutes, everything changed...
ABC News video: ABC News correspondent Tom Jarriel reports LIVE from Memphis, with Bob Young and Peter Jennings reporting from New York.

We moved to South Florida three months later, arriving on a very warm July day via Delta Airlines the day after Larry Csonka signed his first contract with the Dolphins, which was front page news in the Miami Herald as I could tell when we walked past the vending machines at the airport.

CBS News: CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite announces the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis.