his early stuff is better.







not crap

charliedon'tsurf wrote:One, the popular historical narrative seems to have elevated MLK to the being responsible for the entire 60’s civil rights movement to the diminishment of other importance civil rights leaders and lesser movement participants. Not that any of that is his fault or even that he would agree with that viewpoint if he was still here today. But such is the tendency with popular history to make it all into sexy, character-driven narratives focused on several strong personalities instead of the complexity of real human societies.

This is a fair criticism of popular history in general, obsessed with the "great man" narrative at the expense of social movements, social structures and the more complicated reality of historical change. There are, however, examples of popular history that seek to place Dr. King in the context of his times and struggle. One that is especially impressive is Michael Honey's recent book Going Down Jericho Road. Its focus is the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike (the reason MLK was in Memphis the day he was assassinated), but Honey tells the broad story of race and class inequities in western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, and how a variety of actors -- the sanitation workers, local clergy, local union men (including one of Johnny Cash's best friends), and national unions -- shaped a strike that drew national attention.

Honey also shows how Dr. King became attracted to the Memphis strike through a long discussion of his post-1964 work on economic justice, especially his struggles to launch a Poor People's Campaign. Here he is especially good at describing not only Dr. King's strengths as an inspirational leader but also his weaknesses in being unable to build stable organizations to enact change. (There were many failures. Chicagoans might appreciate Honey's brief coverage of MLK's work attempting to desegregate housing in 1966. It's not a happy story; he and Ralph Abernathy later remarked that Chicago was as hostile as any place they had been to in the South, and the movement did not affect the color line in place in Chicago.) Memphis offered the opportunity to catalyze a movement that already had local church and union support, and so for much of the final month of his life, Dr. King focused on the strike.

It's a complex story, but clearly told, and well worth pouring over if you are interested in the history of the Sixties. It's especially good if you would like to see the story of the era told where King plays an important role, but is still only one of many people working for justice in a relentlessly hostile environment. The resolution of the strike after MLK's assassination was generally -- but not entirely -- favorable to the workers, and Honey discusses the pros and cons of the settlement as it affected workers in the Seventies and Eighties.

It goes without saying, but NC. Though he was one of many, Dr. King ranks with W.E.B. DuBois and Thurgood Marshall as arguably the three greatest architects of the challenge to the color line in the twentieth century. Each accomplished enough to make any waffles nitpicking.

According to the title, this poll is about Martin Luther King, as the "Jr." has been omitted. Therefore one might assume that one of the "Crap" votes was from Sammy Jaxx:

In 1969, King Sr. was one of several members of the Morehouse College board of trustees held hostage on the campus by a group of students demanding reform in the school’s curriculum and governance. One of the students was Samuel L. Jackson, who was suspended for his actions. Later Jackson became an actor and nominated for an Academy Award.

Not Crap.