By Donald A. Collins | 18 January 2022
Church and State
To many the rebroadcast on Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday, marked on Monday January 17th (he was actually born on Tuesday January 15, 1929), was the most powerful way to remind all of us the unfulfilled promises of his vision for civil rights.
This hour-long personal chat featured on WETA here in DC on 1/17/22 replayed a remarkable interview conducted by David Susskind June 9, 1963 with King which you can read about here.
An Intimate Conversation with Martin Luther King | David Susskind Meets … https://t.co/loyBTo2Jl1 via @YouTube
— Donald Bergin (@DonaldBergin2) January 18, 2022
King’s gentle but clear admonitions jolted President John F Kennedy’s inaction on civil rights into a JFK speech on national TV which brought Democrats closer to civil rights action. There are articles on JFK’s conversion to a more firm civil rights position in Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere.
As the above article tells us, “David Susskind, a renowned producer well remembered for his interviews discussing social issues of the 1960’s, such as race, sexuality, and the Vietnam War. Susskind risked his life and career by conducting this wide-ranging interview with Dr. King.”
Apparently, based on the number of cigarettes Susskind smoked during this interview, I was not surprised at his somewhat early death in 1987 at 67, but what a memorable interviewer he was!
In this historic chat, King dismissed his chances of assassination as low despite his getting constant death threats.
King was firm and remained so in support for his active non-violence strategy (as opposed to a reticent non-violent do-nothing strategy—time will change things excuse offered by many) as better that the violence offered by others including Malcolm X who was assassinated February 21, 1965. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 which you can read about here.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered this speech the night before his assassination.
The civil rights leader was standing up for Black sanitation workers in Memphis, who were on strike to protest substandard pay and working conditions.#MLKDaypic.twitter.com/AyNWmNWcKT
— AJ+ (@ajplus) January 17, 2022
Was JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy’s civil rights stance, the cause for his assassination on June 6, 1968?
The price paid for bringing civil rights forward has been very heavy and remains central in the fight to keep our democracy from falling into the Trumpian hell of authoritarianism.
Shortly before his assassination in 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that a failure to address economic and social division would lead to “a kind of rightwing take-over in the cities and a Fascist development.”#MLK saw precisely what was coming.https://t.co/0HHeY2hv4c
— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) January 17, 2022
Many of Trump’s supporters don’t fully understand their own racism. Their often-unwitting belief that in advocating going back to “the good old days” they cite represents overt racism. Insight into the mentality of the militia types who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, as well as their actions elsewhere is powerfully documented in a January 2022 Scientific American article entitled “Inside America’s Militias” by Vanderbilt Senior Lecturer Amy Cooter whose credentials to understand and report by her 16 years of field work on their thinking are impressive.
The article’s subtitle reads, “In some members, longing for a fictional “simpler” national past can transform into violence and hatred”.
Members of militia groups can start off merely telling stories around a campfire but over time turn to conspiratorial thinking, open hostility or even violent action. Sociologists who study militias have observed an increase in extremism in recent years. https://t.co/iKs6xpxPcl
— Scientific American (@sciam) December 30, 2021
The midterms could be crucial in saving us from the abject immorality of the Republican Party.
Our 400-year history of racism could continue to evolve favorably but the failure to save our right to vote is central to saving our democracy and our reputation as the “arsenal of democracy” as FDR called us in a radio 29th December on the eve of WWII. Read about it here.
Trump has brought us a long way down to a sinister level of political immorality in a short time.
Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?” and “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?: Leaders Commit to Reduce Human Population”."What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?": https://t.co/fHuh0CG6JD
"We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?": https://t.co/TA4j7cp1tE
"From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013": https://t.co/lkC2t3E1A9 pic.twitter.com/bQsL2mLBcO— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) November 1, 2021
An Intimate Conversation with Martin Luther King | David Susskind Meets MLK | Timeline
President John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address
FBI Arrests Leader Of Far-Right Militia Group For Role In Jan. 6 Attack | Zerlina.
Biden says U.S. democracy under threat on Capitol riot anniversary
Extremists Have Taken Over the Republican Party
